Opening doors to dream schools
After getting into their dream school, Stanford students Hadassah and Elijah began helping family members with their college applications. They found that students often struggled with writing and essay consultants cost thousands.
They assembled an extensive dataset of applications from friends at elite universities and built Esslo: immediate, personalized insights for essays.
In the news
September 2024Can AI Help a Student Get Into Stanford or Yale?
Two entrepreneurial Stanford students fed hundreds of essays—both high and low quality—into an AI model to train it on what top-tier colleges look for in admissions essays.
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December 2025Esslo Named a Cool Tool for College Essays
EdTech Digest names Esslo a Cool Tool—a digital guidance counselor that sharpens students’ essays and their own voice, never writing for them.
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November 2024When a Stanford Bible Study Led to an AI Startup
Two young Christians made a college counseling tool, saying AI should serve those on the margins—not just the rich and powerful.
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December 2025How guidance, college counselors can use AI tools
AI tools such as ChatGPT, Gemini, and Esslo can ease workloads for guidance and college counselors, writes Nina Snyder.
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January 2026The Three P’s of Writing a Memorable College Essay
An independent consultant breaks down the three P’s of a memorable college essay—and how she uses Esslo with her students.
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April 2025Top 10 AI Tools Every College Counselor Should Know in 2025
A veteran college counselor names Esslo among the top AI tools every counselor should know.
Read moreMeet our team
Hadassah Betapudi
CEO
Elijah Kim
CTO
Sia Bedi
Marketing
Sia is a student at University of Georgia (UGA) studying Marketing. She loves that Esslo makes the application process more accessible by helping students in minutes.
Tran Nguyen
Marketing
Tran is a Business student at NYU with the Stern Breakthrough Scholarship. She loves Esslo’s mission to give students better college essay resources.
What our students say
The feedback was honest and thoughtful — it showed me how an admissions officer would read my essays. I didn't want to spend thousands on a counselor, and Esslo was an incredible value.
It was a personal statement I could truly feel proud of. There's no doubt in my mind that Esslo is what helped me get into Johns Hopkins.
I was struggling with my Common App essay and couldn't afford expensive counselors. Finding Esslo was one of the best things I've ever done!
Esslo made it easy to revise my essays, and got me admitted to top universities! Great feedback and helpful tips!
It was so helpful getting timely feedback for all my writing, and it helped me cut my word count in a way that still made sense and kept my original ideas.
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Once I submitted my FAFSA, they kindly gave me free access to Esslo. My stats weren't great, but I got into UVA CS — and I truly believe my essay carried me.
