DATA • DECISION SUPPORT
A data-driven platform for planning Master's studies in Australia
GradScope is a data-driven decision-support platform built to help international students estimate the real cost of pursuing a Master's degree in Australia. It combines tuition fees, scholarships, program duration, and city-level living costs into one personalized estimate, making it easier to compare different study options
Timeline
Built and developed as a focused full-stack project in 2 days.
Background
Students often compare universities based only on tuition fees, overlooking living expenses, program duration, and scholarship savings. GradScope brings these factors together to provide a more realistic view of the total cost of studying abroad.
This category details the step-by-step approach taken during the project, including research, planning, design, development, testing, and optimization phases.
Research & Data
Researched Master's programs, tuition fees, scholarships, and city-level living costs across Australia to build a consistent dataset for comparison.
Data Processing
Cleaned, validated, and transformed the collected data using Python and Pandas before structuring it for the application. The final dataset contains 68 validated course/university combinations.
Product Design
Designed a simple four-step flow where users select their course, city, university, and expected scholarship before receiving their personalized estimate.
Development
Built the platform as a full-stack application using React, TypeScript, Tailwind CSS, FastAPI, PostgreSQL, and interactive data visualization libraries.
GradScope transforms scattered education and cost-of-living information into a single financial planning experience for prospective students.
Personalized Study Planning
Users configure their study plan by selecting a course, city, university, and expected scholarship percentage.
Comprehensive Cost Breakdown
The platform calculates tuition before and after scholarships, living expenses, scholarship savings, and the estimated total Master's cost.
Interactive Visualizations
Charts help users understand how tuition and living expenses contribute to the overall cost.
University Comparison
Users can compare other universities offering the same course across Australia, making different study options easier to evaluate.
Here, the outcomes and achievements of the project are highlighted, including user feedback, adoption rates, and industry recognition.
68 Validated Course Combinations
Built a structured dataset covering 68 validated course and university combinations across Australian capital cities.
Complete Cost Calculation
The platform calculates program-length tuition, scholarship savings, living costs, and total estimated Master's expenses using standardized formulas
Interactive Decision Support
Students can move from selecting a study plan to receiving a complete cost breakdown and university comparison without manually combining information from multiple sources.
Full-Stack Implementation
The project includes a React frontend, FastAPI backend, PostgreSQL database, Python data-processing pipeline, and deployed production infrastructure. This is the right level for your portfolio IMO — enough detail to show that GradScope wasn't just a UI project, but not so much that someone has to read an entire README to understand what you built.