Want to get into a great college? Startup Acceptly offers you the ultimate college acceptance to-do list and even manages to make the process fun – and we can offer you early access to their free web app.

There are an overwhelming number of things you can do to get into college – get good grades, participate in extra-curricular programs, volunteer in your community, regularly visit your guidance councilor, study hard for your SAT and ACT tests and much more. This web app helps you keep track of it all and, more importantly, do it all.

Acceptly is both a to-do list and an encyclopedia of the information you need in order to get into college. Focused primarily on admission to American universities, Acceptly is perfect for any American high school student or anyone hoping to get into an American university. Most importantly, with its game-like features including points and badges, Acceptly makes the hard work of getting accepted less stressful.

How It Works

Log into Acceptly and you’ll be presented with things to do. The software is smart enough never to overwhelm you with tasks, rarely showing you anything more than three easily-accomplished steps:

These steps are broken down into six categories: Academics, Activities, Testing, College Choice, Applications, Financial Aid. A logical sequence of tasks exists in each of these categories, all of them a great combination of information and things you can do to increase your chances of getting into college.

For example, there is the “Academics” section:

Like I said before: only a few tasks are shown to you. This makes the process seem less overwhelming than it is. The steps themselves aren’t complicated; instead, they represent one small step on the path to acceptance. For example, getting to know your high school’s guidance counselor:

It’s simple, but a very important step; your guidance counselor is an important resource for getting into college. Later steps will build upon your introduction and encourage you to keep in touch and consult with your counselor.

There are similar small steps in the “Testing” section for you to check out and accomplish:

Again, the tasks you can fulfill are simple but important, and frequently very informative. Here is an early step regarding the SAT:

It’s a small step, but looking up when you can take the SAT is an important first step to getting into college. Information is combined with active research on your part. Data is recorded and fed back to you. Everything is built from the ground up to keep you organized in your quest to get into college.

Have a college-related question that the system isn’t answering for you? The “Questions” feature allows you to get answers to your questions from an actual human being:

While I’m not sure my specific question will get a useful answer, Acceptly does promise expert answers within 24 hours.

Points & Badges

Like I said earlier, every time you fulfill a task, you become closer to getting into college. To reflect this, Acceptly rewards you with points. The harder a task is the more points you get for a task. You cannot trade these points in for anything; rather, they serve primarily as feedback for you as you continue to work towards your goal. Simply put, Acceptly makes very good use of feedback loops.

This gameification isn’t unique to Acceptly — The Email Games uses a similar idea to encourage you to empty out your inbox.

In addition to points you will occasionally be rewarded for your efforts with badges:

Again, these badges aren’t practically worth anything, but being rewarded for effort makes it more likely that you’ll stick to your plan. Every little bit helps.

Early Access From MakeUseOf!

Acceptly isn’t open to the public until mid September, but MakeUseOf readers can try the service out right now.

Click Here To Try Acceptly Now

Feel free to leave your thoughts about the app in the comments below. And feel free to give your thoughts to the Acceptly team. They have a very good feedback system.