OpenAI Adds College Planner, Teen Council to ChatGPT for Teens
OpenAI is rolling out College Planner and new study features to ChatGPT for Teens while launching a teen AI council with Boston Children's Hospital's Digital Wellness Lab to shape future AI safety defaults.
Radwan AbdulhadiEditor and technology writer
College Planner Targets Application Complexity
OpenAI announced today that College Planner will soon join ChatGPT for Teens, a dedicated experience automatically applied to accounts identified as under 18. The tool consolidates application requirements, deadlines, tasks, and financial-aid steps for schools on a student's list into a single plan that can be updated as progress is made. Students can also ask ChatGPT questions about specific requirements or how to get started.
The initial U.S. release targets high-school students in grades 10 through 12 planning to attend four-year colleges, with expansion to more countries and support for two-year colleges, technical colleges, and trade schools planned over time. College Planner also helps students understand financial aid requirements, track each school's aid deadlines, and explore scholarships and fee waivers.
Partnership with College Advising Corps
Alongside the new planning tool, OpenAI is supporting College Advising Corps, a nonprofit that places recent college graduates as advisers in under-resourced high schools. The contribution will help the organization expand into new states and create an AI fellowship program where advisers test and share practical ways to use AI to help more students navigate the path to college.
The company frames the division of labor clearly: AI can help students manage application and enrollment tasks, while human advisers help them consider options and decide what to do next. Hundreds of thousands of U.S. teens already use ChatGPT each week for college planning, according to OpenAI.
Teen AI Council to Influence Product Decisions
OpenAI is also supporting Boston Children's Hospital's Digital Wellness Lab and its independent Student Advisory Council over the next three years. For the 2026–27 school year, the Lab will bring together approximately 22 students across two tracks: roughly 12 students ages 14–18 working on digital wellbeing projects in their communities, and about 10 students ages 16–20 focused on building AI chatbots and emerging technology.
Students in the AI track will test tools and recommend changes based on how they use AI in learning and their personal lives. OpenAI says it expects to seek feedback on teen safety defaults, parental controls and notifications, and AI literacy. The company aims to bring those recommendations into product and model decisions early and report back to students on what changes are made and why.
New Study Tools: Flashcards and Multi-Photo Capture
Responding to student feedback that photographing and uploading notes to ChatGPT can take hours, OpenAI is adding continuous multi-photo capture. Students can photograph multiple pages of notes and automatically combine them into a single PDF ready for upload. The feature is available on iOS, with Android support in development.
Flashcards are also being added to help teens practice what they're learning. A student preparing for a biology test, for example, can upload class notes and generate flashcards for review. These tools join existing learning features like Learning Visualizations, which nearly 1.2 million teens used in a single week to understand math and science concepts, and Study Mode, used by more than 180,000 teens for step-by-step learning support.
Usage Patterns Show Learning-Focused Engagement
OpenAI shared early usage data indicating that teens with access to ChatGPT for Teens sent about 2.7 million more learning-related messages on average than those without it. The most selected conversation starter prompts are "ask questions to develop my ideas," "give feedback on my draft," and "help me check my evidence."
Teens spend under 15 minutes a day on ChatGPT on average, with less than 2% spending more than three consecutive hours. In almost half of teen conversations where a break reminder appeared, teens took a break or ended the conversation within five minutes. These patterns remain well below the publicly reported average of 5 hours for teen social media usage. Among teens with sessions longer than three consecutive hours, over 80% had at least one prompt related to learning.
Built-In Safeguards and Ongoing Evaluation
ChatGPT for Teens includes built-in reminders to encourage teens to take breaks. OpenAI says it will continue to evaluate the experience and learn from teens, families, and educators to improve the product. The company emphasized that ChatGPT is designed for learning, building, and creativity rather than passive scrolling.
With 1.2 billion users spanning many countries and backgrounds, OpenAI says the reach makes it especially important to build tools that help young people with different resources and opportunities learn and prepare for their futures. The full announcement is available on the company's news site.
Sources
- OpenAI NewsHelping teens learn, plan, and shape the future of AI
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