Prepory, the college admissions consulting firm that has guided more than 14,000 students across 80 countries since 2012, today launched Rory, an AI college admissions tool built entirely from within the admissions process.
The launch comes at a moment when the majority of students applying to college are already using AI. Most don’t realize the tool they’re relying on could be working against them. Generic platforms like ChatGPT weren’t built for the specificity that college admissions demands. They flatten individual voice, produce writing patterns that admissions offices are increasingly trained to detect, and give students confident-sounding answers drawn from whatever happens to be on the public internet. The students hit hardest are those going through it alone, without a coach or consultant who actually knows how these decisions get made. A 2026 study by researchers at Cornell University and Carnegie Mellon University put numbers to what admissions professionals have been observing firsthand. Analyzing more than 81,000 applications, they found that lower-income students were 28% more likely to rely heavily on AI and faced an admissions penalty nearly twice as large as their higher-income peers, an 83% reduction in admission odds compared to 62%, even after controlling for GPA and test scores.
Rory was built on the premise that AI in college admissions is only as good as the expertise behind it, and that expertise has to come from those who have sat on the other side of the decision. Unlike ChatGPT and other general AI platforms that draw answers from broad internet data, Rory is trained on more than a decade of real student profiles, actual application outcomes, and insider admissions expertise that has never lived on the public internet. The tool runs on over 400 years of combined experience from Prepory’s coaches who are former admissions officers, Ivy League alumni, and university staff.
The result is something fundamentally different from any other AI tool available to students. Rory is designed to surface a student’s individual voice rather than replace it. It asks pointed questions, identifies specific threads in a student’s profile, and gives school-specific assessments grounded in patterns from a real pool of 14,000-plus students guided by experts. It also includes guardrails that general AI tools don’t have. It will not produce content that triggers AI detection and it handles sensitive topics, including mental health, with appropriate care. A poorly calibrated AI tool can do real damage to a college application, and Rory was built with that risk in mind.
This level of care only comes from having real skin in the game. “Rory exists because of the work our coaches have done with real students over the past decade,” said Daniel Santos, CEO of Prepory. “It can’t replace what they do, and it was never meant to. What it can do is bring that same layer of expert judgment to students who don’t have a coach to fall back on, and give them an honest, specific read on where they actually stand.”
Rory is available now at prepory.ai
About Prepory
Prepory is a global college admissions company that supports students across undergraduate, graduate, and professional school admissions. Since 2012, Prepory has been trusted by over 14,000 students in more than 80 countries. Combining personalized advising with proprietary data and training systems, Prepory partners with students and families to deliver exceptional outcomes across the U.S. and U.K.
Media Contact
Leticia Casanova MarTech Director, Prepory lcasanova@prepory.com
