EdAbroad
An AI-powered platform guiding Indian students through smarter, more transparent study abroad journeys
EdAbroad is a platform designed to help Indian students confidently plan their study abroad journey, starting with the most underserved group: design and art students. It replaces biased consultancy advice with personalized program matching, mentorship, and application tracking. Built as my UX master’s thesis, EdAbroad was validated through user research, lean experiments, market validation, and multiple rounds of testing.
Timeline: 8 months
My Role: Product Strategy, UX Research, End-to-End Product Design
The Problem
Indian students in creative fields (like design, fine arts, and architecture) often face misinformation, biased consultancy advice, and a lack of personalized guidance. My research showed:
- Students rely heavily on consultancy agents who often prioritize commissions over student fit
- 85% of creative field students reported receiving misaligned or incomplete guidance
- There’s a lack of visibility into deadlines, program requirements, or community support
- Poor program fit leads to wasted money, delays, and even visa rejection
The Challenge
How might we help Indian students misguided by traditional consultancies make better decisions about studying in the U.S.?
The Opportunity
India’s study abroad landscape is dominated by profit-driven consultancies and generic, one-size-fits-all advice. Students lack trusted tools for independent planning, leading to confusion, misdirection, and missed opportunities.
There’s a clear gap for a transparent, student-first platform.
The Solution
EdAbroad is a personalized, AI-powered mobile platform that helps Indian students, starting with creative fields, plan their study abroad journey with clarity and control.
- Matches students with best-fit U.S. programs using AI-powered recommendations.
- Reduces stress with clear timelines, guided steps, and real-time application tracking
- Supports students from exploration to admission, saving them time, energy, and missteps
Expected Impact
- Reduce program shortlisting time by 75%
- Improve program–student alignment by 50%
- Decrease dropouts or last-minute deadline panic by 50%
- Increase student confidence and autonomy in decision-making
Design Outcomes
Smart Shortlisting
AI recommends programs based on quiz data, like preferred programs, goals, academic background, and test scores like IELTS and GRE, and gives transparent match scores. This replaces guesswork and biased suggestions with clarity and relevance, addressing the core issue of program/university misalignment.
Mentor Matching
Students are paired with alumni-based mentors who studied similar fields, solving the problem of isolation and generalized advice by providing real guidance from those who’ve been through the process.
Application Support and Tracker
In-app application support, personalized task breakdowns, and reminders ensure students stay on track and meet deadlines without stress. This reduces deadline anxiety and prevents delays, a common failure point reported in user interviews.
Research & Validation
Phase 1: Discovery of the Root Cause
- Interviewed 12 students across various academic backgrounds.
- Identified 4 key pain points:
07/12
Students faced financial loss
“I ended up paying them ₹7000 and I got my certificates back, and I did not work with that consultancy anymore.”
11/12
Students received irrelevant guidance
“So they were trying to hook me up to this technical courses like information systems or computer science, which I had zero interest pursuing.”
09/12
Students faced stress, regret, and mental health strain
“They demotivated me… they were like, you won’t be getting into this college… I had to raise my voice for them to apply it.”
Phase 2: Market Validation through Pretotyping
- Fake Front Door Test (7 days): 31.1% conversion rate (14/45 signed up)
I launched a simple one-page landing site to explain EdAbroad’s benefits and measure interest. In 7 days, the page had 45 unique visitors and 14 signups, giving a 31.1% conversion rate. Since this was above the 25% success threshold, the experiment is considered a success. - Mechanical Turk Test (30 days): 100% trusted AI matches (3/3)
To simulate AI recommendations, I manually curated university matches for 3 students based on their profile inputs and presented them as AI-generated. I also included a short explanation for each — ”Why is this a good match for you?” Surprisingly, 2 out of 3 students had already shortlisted some of the programs I suggested, reinforcing the match accuracy. After 30 days, I followed up to check if they had considered or shortlisted any of those programs — all 3 confirmed they had and expressed greater trust in AI-based suggestions over consultancies’ generic advice - Pinocchio Test: 1/4 completed app flow
I created a long Google Form that mimicked the full application process, asking for profile details, academic history, interests, and preferences in separate forms linked internally. Half of the participants dropped off midway, saying it felt like “just another boring form.” But after I showed them the EdAbroad app flow (same steps, but designed interactively), they were impressed and felt more motivated to complete it.
Phase 3: User Testing
I tested the EdAbroad prototype with 5 students. Each completed 7 tasks designed to simulate real usage.
User Testing Findings:
Finding 1: 5/5 users missed the AI-powered program matching feature.
Finding 2: 4/5 users didn’t notice the mentorship feature unless guided because it was hidden in the side menu.
Business & Strategic Vision
EdAbroad is more than an app — it’s a scalable ecosystem. Starting with creative students and the USA was intentional, but it supports other fields (CS, medicine, and business, etc.) and global expansion (Canada, UK). Designed to align with ethical partners and scalable through community trust.
Revenue Model
- Freemium: Core features free for all
- Premium Tier: ₹15,000 one-time upgrade for mentorship and full application support
- University Partnerships: Ethically aligned referrals
- Application Processing: Service fee per successful submission
- White-label Licensing: For undergrad schools and consultancies.
ED-Abroad 2.0 Loading…
- AI-Powered Chatbot
- Pre-Existing Shortlist Analyzer
- Expand to other fields & countries
Key Learnings & Takeaways
- Start with a sharp niche: Creative students faced the most pain, which gave the product immediate relevance
- Validate early: Pretotyping helped avoid wasted design cycles
- Trust = the real UX: AI only worked because the match reasoning was explained clearly
- Good design reduces emotional load: Confidence and structure were just as important as clean UI
- Scaling ethically is a strategy: Avoided affiliate revenue to maintain user-first integrity
Thank you for reading! :)
