NextFour announces the official launch of its online platform to help students seeking admission to the most selective U.S. colleges. Featuring AI-powered personalized advice, exclusive data-driven insights, and on-demand access to human experts, the innovative NextFour solution expertly guides families through the key aspects of the college planning process to maximize their chances of being admitted to their top-choice schools.
NextFour was founded in 2023 by Silicon Valley entrepreneurs and husband-and-wife team Samir Kothari and Benita Daryani. As technology industry veterans (formerly with Meta and Google) and parents familiar with the complexities of college admissions, they created NextFour to address the challenges they encountered firsthand. The bar for gaining admission to top-ranked colleges has never been higher, underscoring the importance of a thoughtful application strategy and prompting anxious families to seek guidance. However, with high school counselors facing overwhelming caseloads and traditional private counseling services often being expensive and inconsistent, many families struggle to find help that is reliable, easily accessible, data-driven, and affordable. NextFour uniquely solves for these problems by democratizing access to knowledge and tools that give students a critical edge in the college admissions process.
How It Works
The core of NextFour’s college planning service is an exclusive data analytics platform featuring a comprehensive and structured dataset covering the college admissions ecosystem. This proprietary information (representing thousands of data sources) powers advanced metasearch interfaces, easy-to-understand visualizations, and AI-driven guidance. These features analyze the user’s individual profile to provide personalized, evidence-based advice to help them make well-informed, data-driven college planning decisions, such as:
- Strategically selecting intended majors based on personal interests, competitiveness, and career outcomes
- Identifying extracurricular activities based on alignment with application themes and impact in college admissions
- Determining whether to submit SAT/ACT scores based on evolving school-specific test policies and benchmarks
- Building a college list (and early application strategy) based on personal preferences, proprietary rankings, and individualized likelihood of admission
NextFour’s suite of automated capabilities is complemented by seamless connectivity to humans with relevant domain expertise. The NextFour Advisors Network allows users to easily connect one-on-one with current college students who have recent, firsthand experiences with specific extracurricular activities, colleges, and majors. NextFour also offers a unique messaging-based Q&A service where NextFour experts are available to answer questions in real-time at a fraction of the cost of traditional counselors. NextFour’s hybrid approach combines innovative technology with human experts on an on-demand basis, ensuring families can efficiently access the help they need to feel confident in their decision-making.
A growing number of students and parents have already benefited from a beta version of the NextFour platform. Class of 2025 parent Paula S. shares her experience: “NextFour was invaluable to us! We got incredible insights and advice that were critical in supporting our son’s college admissions journey. We previously tried other online products, and even hired private college counselors, but NextFour was simply better, faster, and cheaper. And now we are thrilled that our son was accepted into several top schools, including his first choice!”
“Getting into a highly ranked college doesn’t happen overnight; it requires strategic planning and thoughtful decision-making throughout the high school years to build the strongest applications. We recognize that the process can be intensely challenging, which is why we specifically designed our service to help students (and their parents) throughout that journey and into their dream schools,” stated Samir Kothari, co-founder and co-CEO of NextFour. “The feedback from our early users has been great, and we are excited to now extend the platform to more families. We will continue to innovate and execute on our mission to provide users with a trustworthy solution that reduces anxiety, saves money, and enhances college admissions outcomes.”
Visit www.nextfour.ai to receive data-driven, actionable insights for developing a compelling application profile and enhancing your chances of admission to selective colleges. Most platform features are free, ensuring easy accessibility for all users. Optional, fee-based features — such as real-time access to human experts — are offered individually at a fraction of the cost of traditional college counseling services.
