Plain definitions of the terms Pathfinder uses: the eight pathways, the grounded / modelled / advisory claim labels, scholarship eligibility and more.
Pathways
One of the eight routes Pathfinder treats as equally valid after high school. University is one option among many, never the default.
Hands-on routes into skilled careers that combine paid work with structured training — often faster and more affordable than a traditional degree.
A US Department of Labor program: a paid job with structured on-the-job learning, related classroom instruction, progressive wage increases and a portable, nationally recognised credential at completion.
Definition follows the U.S. Department of Labor's apprenticeship.gov Registered Apprenticeship Program page for employers (opened 2026-09-11), which names paid employment with progressive wages, structured on-the-job learning with a mentor, supplemental classroom instruction, and a portable, nationally-recognized credential.
An affordable, flexible route to transfer to a four-year degree or enter the workforce directly.
Entering the workforce directly after high school, with a plan for the skills, experience and roles that get you where you want to go.
Serving in the armed forces to earn qualifications and build a career with structure, purpose and funding.
Industry credentials — from coding bootcamps to professional certificates — that open doors to specific jobs without a degree.
Starting something of your own: developing skills, finding early customers and building a business instead of, or alongside, further study.
A degree route: comparing courses and universities across countries and understanding what each one actually asks for.
"Not sure yet" as a legitimate starting point: exploring options honestly with no pressure to commit. Pathfinder treats it as a pathway in its own right.
A deliberate break between high school and what comes next. Not a Pathfinder pathway, but a choice Pathfinder can plan around.
The compare-and-commit step in Explore: choosing a primary pathway and an explicit backup rather than a single unhedged choice.
How claims are labelled
The public label Pathfinder attaches to each claim in a plan or counsellor answer, showing how grounded it is: grounded, modelled or advisory.
A claim Pathfinder can point to a specific, dated source for — checked for the exact fact and the cycle in view.
A figure Pathfinder computed from available data rather than read from a source: a reasoned estimate, not a fact.
General guidance that is not specific to this student or this exact context.
A record that one specific fact was checked against one official publication for one cycle. It is never a quality score for a website and never a statement about a student.
A claim — an application deadline, an admission requirement or a course requirement — where being wrong changes the decision itself. Pathfinder holds it to a stricter freshness bar and never lets it soften into a lesser label.
A behaviour Pathfinder's AI is built not to do: invent a deadline or cost, state your chances of getting in, or decide scholarship eligibility by opinion.
A predicted probability of admission. Pathfinder never states one, in any wording, because it cannot be computed honestly from a profile.
Planning
Your personalised plan: a one-screen summary (route, backup, what decides it, next three steps), a semester-by-semester roadmap and a funding section, with every claim labelled and any unchecked figure flagged for you to confirm. One generation on the free plan, plus a free rebuild when your top choice or first-choice path changes (up to three in 30 days); unlimited regeneration on Family.
The check that separates a complete profile from a plan-ready one, so a shallow intake never produces a falsely confident plan.
The single view that brings together your plan, tasks, evidence, applications, decisions, risks and open unknowns.
A pathway-specific, ordered sequence of experiences, projects and evidence to build, kept inside your plan as its proof ladder rather than a separate list.
Documents and artefacts you attach to prove a claim or requirement — a transcript, a score report, a project — kept in your evidence locker.
Where your uploads live, including transcript extraction.
The one step that matters most this week, picked from your plan, your review dates and the deadlines whose start-by date has arrived, with nudges and check-ins when things stall.
The free view of deadlines, typical requirements for your route and country, evidence reuse, results and offers across everything you are applying to.
A bounded tool-using assistant — catalogue search, knowledge-base search, scholarship search, your own plan state — that proposes changes for you to confirm and never silently edits your data. Five messages a day on the free plan.
A human counsellor's sign-off on a plan, where a school or counsellor works with you. It distinguishes AI-prepared content from human-approved content.
Scholarships
Financial aid awarded to a student for further education.
Checking every approved award against your profile and sorting it into what you qualify for, what rules you out and why, and what cannot be determined yet. On the free plan.
One of the ten rules every award is scored on: citizenship, residence, study country, field of study, pathway, grade level, GPA, demographic, financial need and deadline window.
Each rule is open to everyone, restricted to certain people, or simply not stated by the provider. "Unknown" is never silently treated as "open" — Pathfinder names the one detail that would settle it.
People and plans
The explicit, student-initiated, token-based step that turns on a parent's read access. Parent access never exists without it.
What an invited parent sees: the week's focus, tasks finished in the last seven days, what is due in the next fourteen, evidence the student chose to share, and whether a counsellor endorsed the plan. Never counsellor conversations or unshared drafts.
Guided intake, the explorer, one AI-generated plan, scholarship matching with reasons, application tracking with requirement checklists and the application command center, task and evidence basics, and five AI counsellor messages a day. No credit card.
The paid tier: unlimited plan regeneration, unlimited counsellor chat, essay feedback, and the full parent progress view with a Sunday summary email.
Country and curriculum
A configuration bundle — currency, admissions system, intake cycles, supported curricula and languages — for one of five supported countries: the United States, the United Kingdom, the United Arab Emirates, India and Singapore.
Planning that accounts for which of the seven supported curricula you follow: IB, A-Levels, AP, CBSE, ICSE, the US high-school diploma, or a national curriculum.