Our app, CAPS or College Application Preparation for Students, is designed to help high schoolers organize and stream line their application process in a simple and free way. For at-risk students, the app works as a communication device to contact their social worker and track their progress. 

Through the app users are able to search colleges, separate applications based on what process is used, track their progress using checklists, and find scholarships available to them. Once they create an account the app will save all data and can easily be updated. Our studio is called HEARTH, or Homeless Education Advocates Restoring The Hope. Two social workers came in to talk to our group about the students they work with in Polk County. We learned that one social worker can be assigned to over 300 students and can sometimes not meet with them as often as she hopes, especially to help juniors and seniors with complicated college application. This means that the students either spend their limited number of visits with their social worker filling out college applications or have to complete them on their own. Our goal was to design an app that will help students with the application process and explain each step, but also help the social workers communicate with each student and easily track the progress made. Currently there is no application app that is user friendly and also free. There are other models that are very expensive which we felt was unfair for those who simply can’t afford to spend fifty dollars on an app. The free versions were very basic and difficult to use. 

We used MIT 2 App Inventor and an Android tablet to code and design the app. The design process went quickly once we had the layout planned. We were able to easily go back and make changes to modify the flow as our ideas change. The app only allowed ten screens so we had to sit down and combine multiple ideas to meet this requirement and still include everything we wanted.