Sophomore Robert Moore often thinks of one of his high school friends. Like Moore, his friend had hopes of attending Princeton. But unlike Moore, his hopes were never realized.
"He beat me at almost everything and had amazing credentials," Moore said. "But when it came time to apply, he didn't know how to market himself and didn't have any way to learn. I got in, he didn't and I still feel guilty."
The plight of just this sort of student helped inspire Moore and fellow sophomore Adam Ludwig to embark on a project that recently came to fruition as YesLetter.com, which opened for business last week.
The website, which gives high schoolers advice on how to best present themselves to selective colleges and universities, is run and staffed entirely by Ivy League undergraduates.
The site includes extensive advice on essays, standardized testing, extracurricular activities, and summer opportunities, which the staff has gathered from a year's worth of research.
Services to help students get into their first choice schools are not new. From SAT prep courses to college guidebooks, the process of applying to — let alone getting into — a competitive school can be expensive.
YesLetter.com is hoping to streamline the process of finding information while at the same time making it more affordable. According to Ludwig, one can easily spend more than $1,000 on books covering every aspect of the process.
Alternatively, there are other websites offering comprehensive counseling services for more than $15,000, with no guarantees of admission, he said.
YesLetter will offer a three-month-long subscription for $70, and make plans available to schools for less than $1000.
The founders hope YesLetter will be more than just a collection of articles, though. They foresee the community of members and staffers making it more dynamic by interacting with one another.
Each night a live chat is open to members and moderated by a staffer. Similarly, there are message boards, moderated by staff members, which members can use to post questions or make comments about their experiences.
By Oct. 1, YesLetter will mail out information packets to more than 500 schools which may be interested in becoming members. One year from now, Moore hopes to be "incredibly busy in the heat of what will be our first full national cycle of college admissions."
"It's not just a crapshoot," said Moore of the increasingly competitive admissions process. "There are ways. . .to make sure that your application is going to stand out and you're going to earn the spot you deserve at the school you want to go to."
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