Online test prep and college counseling for US and international high school students
Novel Prep operates an online tutoring and college-prep platform founded in 2013, initially serving international students seeking US private school admission. The company shifted to an online model in 2017 and has scaled to 7,000+ students served and 860,000+ cumulative instructional hours by end of 2023. The tech stack is lightweight—Blackbaud, Canvas, Zoom, Google Sheets, Airtable—reflecting a people-intensive, education-first operation rather than a software product. Hiring is almost entirely education staff (74 of 83 roles), signaling growth through instructor capacity rather than platform engineering.
Notable leadership hires: Admissions Director
Novel Prep delivers online test preparation, curriculum support, and college counseling to high school students pursuing admission to top-tier US universities. The offering spans US high school curriculum support, AP exam prep, and middle-school competition coaching, with additional expertise in international curricula. The company operates as a partnership from Irvine, California, with a 11–50-person team composed primarily of educators and academic advisors. Active projects show focus on curriculum depth (humanities development, interdisciplinary units), student outcomes (progress monitoring, performance improvement), and enrollment pipeline (college readiness workshops, admissions communications). Current operational challenges include student engagement, scaling enrollment, managing diverse learning needs across a distributed student base, and improving internal financial and data-protection systems.
Canvas (LMS), Zoom (instruction), Google Sheets and Airtable (administration), Blackbaud (student management), and QuickBooks Online (financials).
Over 7,000 students as of end 2023, with 860,000+ cumulative instructional hours delivered since launching online courses in 2017.
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