Research Pilot
Students preparing for the college admissions process should be thinking about their limitless future ahead, but the current measuring sticks for admissions, a GPA and standardized test scores, can paint a very narrow picture. Lens was built with the simple mission to leverage decades of cognitive research into the differences in our personality, our goals, interests, values and how we think, in order to assist a student in their college admissions process. We approach this mission by taking these assessments of the student and looking at all the robust data on colleges and making the connections on which types might be the best fit. We don't suggest specific colleges, but rather types of colleges that align with what makes you unique. We also take these insights about you and look at research on majors and careers paths and again make suggestions on potential fit.
See how it works →The Problem
By junior year, most students are deep into a process built around comparison: test scores, class rank, extracurricular résumés, and — above all — where a school lands on a ranking list. It's an enormous amount of pressure applied to a question the process rarely actually asks: what kind of place, and what kind of work, would let this specific student thrive?
That question isn't unanswerable. There's decades of published, peer-reviewed research on what predicts a student's belonging, engagement, and long-term satisfaction after they enroll somewhere. It's just almost never selectivity. A review synthesizing more than 1,800 peer-reviewed studies found little evidence that college selectivity predicts learning gains, wellbeing, or job satisfaction — a finding that has held for 40 to 50 years. Students admitted to more selective schools who chose less selective ones did just as well financially.
The research on what actually matters exists. It's just never been put in a form a 17-year-old building a college list can actually use — until they've already committed to chasing the wrong number.
The Research
A sample of the published research behind that claim. Full citations on the Research page.
A 2024 study of 4,753 first-year students across 12 colleges found that how extraverted, agreeable, and emotionally stable a student is predicts belonging differently depending on school size — and that relationship is strongest at large schools specifically.
Stubblebine, Gopalan & Brady (2024), PLoS ONE
The Gallup-Purdue Index identified six specific college experiences — like a mentor who encourages your goals, or a multi-semester project — that predict lifelong engagement and wellbeing. Only 3% of graduates get all six. Institution type meaningfully changes the odds.
Gallup-Purdue Index
Holland's decades-old theory of work fit — validated repeatedly since — still anchors modern major and career matching. Layering in personality, values, and real academic performance sharpens that match further.
Holland (1959–1997); O*NET, U.S. Dept. of Labor
The Approach
Lens combines nine published, peer-reviewed assessments — covering personality, values, motivation, psychological needs, risk tolerance, passion, and leadership style — with your real academic data (GPA and SAT/ACT) into a single battery. Individually, these instruments already have decades of validation behind them. Combined and synthesized, they produce a fuller picture of a person than any one of them could alone.
An AI system turns that structured evidence into a warm, plain-language profile — not a diagnosis, a starting point for self-understanding. From there, as an optional next step, you can get general, research-grounded guidance on the types of colleges and majors likely to fit you — never a list of specific schools, never a ranking, always tied back to the research above.
This is explicitly a research pilot. We're testing whether putting this research directly into students' hands actually makes the search for fit easier, less anxious, and more likely to succeed — not assuming it does.
Create a free account, work through the nine assessments and add your academic data at your own pace, and see what the research says about you.