Frequently Asked Questions

• Independent educational consultants (IECs) who want a research assistant that knows their students, keeps them better prepared for every meeting, and helps students make real progress between sessions.
• School counselors who need to support a large caseload with accurate, personalized information and a structured process, rather than just a search engine.

Students and parents take part in Soar as members of their counselor’s practice. A student gets a knowledgeable thinking partner to guide them through the research process and stay on track. A parent gets a window into what their student is doing and a place to ask their own questions. Both join Soar by invitation from their counselor, so every student using Soar is supported by a professional guiding the process.

No. Soar is offered to independent educational consultants and school counselors, and students and families join only through their counselor’s invitation. This is by design. Every student on Soar is connected to a professional who is guiding their process, so the research a student does always has a counselor in the loop.

If you are a parent or student interested in Soar, ask your counselor whether they use it. If you are not currently working with a counselor and would like to be, email us at help@withsoar.ai and we can help point you in the right direction.

General-purpose AI tools like ChatGPT and Claude are powerful search and writing assistants. Soar is different in ways that matter for college and career planning:

• Soar doesn’t just answer questions, it guides you through a process built over many years of successful college and career counseling. It asks follow-up questions, surfaces what students and families often overlook, and moves the conversation toward real decisions rather than just information.
• It knows the student. Soar is built around each student’s real profile: GPA, test scores, interests, activities, home state, budget. When you ask “Is this school a good fit?”, Soar actually knows the answer. A general AI does not.
• It remembers everything. Every conversation builds on the last. Research from October is still there in March. You are never starting over.
• It’s grounded in authoritative data. General AI tools can and do hallucinate about acceptance rates, financial aid policies, and program details. Soar uses a curated, regularly updated dataset. See How accurate is Soar’s information? below.
• It’s built for this specific process. College and career planning has a specific rhythm, vocabulary, and set of common traps. Soar is designed around all of it, not general knowledge.

Soar is for IECs and school counselors. Counselors can get started free from the home page. Students and parents do not sign up here. Their counselor invites them directly with an invite link.

If you are a student or parent working with a counselor who uses Soar, watch for that invite, or ask your counselor to send one. Questions? Email us at help@withsoar.ai.

Soar is free to get started, and you can do real work on the free tier from day one.

• Free: one counselor with up to three students and their parents, permanently free.
• Paid: $29.99/month per counselor seat, plus a per-student rate that steps down as you add students: $6.99/month each for students 4 through 25, $5.99 for students 26 through 75, and $4.99 for students 76 and up.
• Annual billing: twelve months for the price of ten.

HECA members receive 15% off for as long as they maintain membership — email us for a discount code and enter it at checkout. For school or district pricing, or to talk through the right plan for your practice, email us at help@withsoar.ai.

A research session is how Soar measures usage, not by the number of messages, but by the amount of focused research time. A session begins when you start a conversation and remains active as long as you are actively working in it. After 60 minutes of inactivity, the session ends automatically.

This means you can have a long, in-depth conversation about a student’s college list, asking many questions, refining results, comparing schools, and it counts as one session. Research sessions reset monthly.

When a counselor researches on behalf of a student, the session counts against the student’s shared pool, not the counselor’s own limit.

• Researching colleges by major, size, location, cost, culture, and fit
• Understanding admissions likelihood based on a student’s academic profile
• Searching for scholarships and enrichment and summer programs
• Exploring majors, career pathways, and industries
• Reviewing financial aid options and understanding net price calculators
• Analyzing transcripts, including international transcripts and dual enrollment
• Organizing college lists, tracking deadlines, and managing activities
• Drafting counselor session reports and meeting prep briefs
• Coaching essays through the Writing Hub, where humans do the coaching and Soar never writes the essay

Soar is a research and planning tool. It is not a substitute for professional college counseling, and important decisions should be reviewed with a qualified counselor.

Soar draws from several authoritative sources to provide college information:

• Peterson’s — Common Data Set information and scholarship data for thousands of colleges and universities
• IPEDS — the U.S. Department of Education’s Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System
• College Scorecard — federal data on enrollment, outcomes, and financial aid
• Curated enrichment programs — a maintained list of high-quality paid and free summer and enrichment programs
• Live web research — for acceptance rates, test score benchmarks, financial aid, admissions factors, scholarships, and program details that change frequently

AI-generated responses may occasionally contain inaccuracies or outdated information. We recommend verifying important details directly with the college or a qualified counselor before making decisions.

Soar’s information comes from a mix of licensed and public data sources, and we credit the ones that ask for it or that inform our work:

• Peterson’s — we license college and scholarship data, including Common Data Set information, from Peterson’s.
• IPEDS — the U.S. Department of Education’s Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System, a public database.
• College Scorecard — public outcome and financial data from the U.S. Department of Education.
• Compass Education Group — current college test policies (test-required, test-optional, and test-free).
• U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics — career earnings and occupational data.

Writing Hub: Some concepts in our Common App module are based on elements of the Wow Method, developed by Wow Writing Workshop, and are used with permission.

Self-Discovery assessment:Soar’s personality assessment is based on the IPIP-NEO, a Big Five personality measure developed by Dr. John A. Johnson of Penn State from the public-domain International Personality Item Pool (IPIP), and is used with his permission.