AdmitHub is the first provider of massively open online college counseling (that's MOOCC with 2 Cs). Kirk Daulerio, a co-founder, is a former ivy league admissions officer and first gen college student. Drew Magliozzi, the other co-founder, is a career ed tech entrepreneur with a passion for disruptive innovation.
Purpose
College admissions is broken. The wealthy elite spend $2 billion a year on private college consulting, while everyone else is left to scrounge for information on online message boards often rife with misinformation. Meanwhile, colleges spend an average of $1 million a year on recruiting and still struggle to find the right applicants.
Six months ago, Kirk Daulerio and Drew Magliozzi founded AdmitHub to give all students free access to expert admissions advice, and to give colleges a platform to recruit those students more efficiently.
“We plan to do for education what LinkedIn did for the workforce,” says Kirk.
Team
Kirk is a first generation-college student who has spent his 20-year career in education. He has worked on both sides of the desk as an admissions officer at Princeton, Penn, and Bowdoin and as a high school counselor at Gould Academy, a New England independent school. Prior to starting AdmitHub, Kirk served for three years as the Director of Member Relations at The Common Application ©.
Drew is a graduate of Harvard ‘05 and Hack Reactor ‘13. He is a career ed tech entrepreneur who previously founded Signet Education and KarmaNotes.org. He is also the author of How to Get into (Your) Harvard: and more college admissions advice.
Drew and Kirk met four years ago and became fast friends after swapping family recipes for spaghetti and meatballs. When they aren’t laughing and joking, the two are dedicated to leveling the playing field in college admissions. They are even combining their levity and advice in a weekly call-in podcast, About Admissions, modeled after Car Talk, which Drew’s father and uncle hosted on NPR for thirty-seven years.
“Admissions is often fraught with emotion,” Drew explains. “Our podcast is much cheaper than the therapist, and a whole lot more fun.”
MOOCC
AdmitHub has been called the first provider of Massively Open Online College Counseling. That’s MOOCC with two Cs. It’s early, but the site has nearly 5,000 users and eight college partners sharing advice freely on AdmitHub.
“Undergraduate admissions is just the beginning,” Kirk explains. “In the coming months and years, we’ll expand to graduate school and prep school.”
Progress
So far, AdmitHub has brought on a number of influential college partners, including St. Anselm College, The Cooper Union, and Georgia State University. Even the I-Lab’s own Gordon Jones is a contributor. If you are trying to decide whether to pursue a startup or go to college, check out Gordon’s advice.
Most recently, AdmitHub was also awarded the prize for the top Boston education startup by 1776, a global incubator and seed fund based in Washington DC.
