🎯 10 Shortlisted Projects

For high school students applying to CS programs • Evaluated by admissions officers

Evaluation Panel: MIT AO • Stanford AO • Georgia Tech AO • Industry Engineer

What Makes These Projects Special

These 10 projects represent the best balance of impact, leadership potential, authenticity, and feasibility — through the lens of what top CS programs actually look for.

"We know when we're being sold to. If someone says 'I built an Instagram clone,' we know they followed a tutorial. If someone says 'I couldn't find study partners, so I built an app for me and my friends' — that's real."
— MIT Admissions Officer
📰
1 Ad-Free News Brief

Minimalist news aggregator — no ads, no tracking, no clutter. Just news summaries from RSS feeds. Target: 1,000+ daily users.

Impact: High Product
Web App 2-3 weeks $0
👨‍🏫
2 CodeTeacheR

Airbnb-style peer tutoring platform. Students who aced AP CS tutor those who need help. 100+ sessions in first semester.

Impact: High ORGANIZATION
Community 2-3 weeks $0
👥
3 StudyGroup Finder

Find and form study groups for AP/IB CS exams. Students study alone because they can't find partners ��� this fixes that. 200+ groups.

Impact: Medium COMMUNITY
Mobile App 3-4 weeks $0
🎨
4 VSCode Theme

Custom VS Code theme optimized for students. Not too dark, not too bright — good syntax highlighting for long coding sessions. 1,000+ installs.

Impact: Medium Open Source
Extension 1-2 weeks $0
📋
5 Git Cheat Sheet App

Interactive, searchable git cheatsheet. Click a command, see what it does. Learn by doing, not memorizing. 300+ users.

Impact: Medium Education
Web App 2-3 weeks $0
⌨️
6 CLI Tool

CLI tool to automate student developer tasks — setup projects, install dependencies, run common commands. 100+ npm downloads.

Impact: Medium Engineering
Developer Tool 2-3 weeks $0
🍱
7 Campus Food Rescue

Connect cafeteria food that would be wasted to students in need. Real social impact. 100+ meals saved. This is WHY CS matters.

VERY HIGH SOCIAL IMPACT
Social Impact 4-6 weeks $0
🐛
8 DebugDeck

Community wiki of solutions to common coding errors. Not what is the error — HOW DID I FIX IT? 500+ solutions documented.

Impact: High Sustained
Wiki Ongoing $0
📊
9 Grade Predictor

"What do I need on the final?" calculator with weighted grades. Simple, fast, useful. 100+ calculations.

Impact: Medium Utility
Utility 1 week $0
📧
10 Tech News Digest

Weekly email digest of tech news curated for students. Not all the news — just what's relevant. Curation is a skill. 200+ subscribers.

Impact: Medium Content
Newsletter 1 hr/week $0

Behind the Scenes — Committee Evaluation

"We can tell when someone spread themselves thin vs. went deep on something that matters. One project with 1,000 users beats 10 projects with 0 users."
— Georgia Tech Admissions

View full research (52 projects) →View committee debate →