As Christopher Gray and his co-founders, Nick Pirollo and Bryson Alef, began the work of developing Scholly into a powerful tool for prospective college students, they were offered the opportunity to pitch their nascent app on the popular show Shark Tank. How Christopher Gray’s app, Scholly, helps kids go to college. Those who download the app will be asked to fill out a brief questionnaire, which provides Scholly with the information it needs to sort through a database of scholarship opportunities and provide a list of options. Christopher Gray Instagram/ @cjgray91 ) Lori Greiner, one of the judges, as well as FUBU co-founder, Daymond John , decided to partner with Gray after a … Feeding Scholly to the Sharks. As Christopher Gray and his co-founders, Nick Pirollo and Bryson Alef, began the work of developing Scholly into a powerful tool for prospective college students, they were offered the opportunity to pitch their nascent app on the popular show Shark Tank. I am Christopher Gray, a student who won 1.3 million dollars in scholarships, and the creator of Scholly! View the profiles of professionals named "Christopher Gray" on LinkedIn. Within the first few hours after the show was aired, Scholly received 80,000 requests. July 3, 2018. He often wrote 500-word application essays on his phone — not a smartphone but a chunky 2008 model with a tiny keyboard. Chris won over one million dollars to go to college, some of it from big name scholarship programs like the Gate's Foundation and Coca Cola Scholars Foundation. But the process nagged at him. You have to ignore whatever is going on around you, put your head down, and focus.’”. Today, it has roughly 3 million users who have landed more than $110 million in scholarships. There are 1,900+ professionals named "Christopher Gray", who use LinkedIn to exchange information, ideas, and opportunities. How, he thought, could it be so disjointed? Christopher Gray, one of Forbes’s “30 Under 30” and Oprah Winfrey’s “SuperSoul 100,” shares advice for students hoping to launch a sustainable social venture. Founded at Drexel by Gray and fellow students Nick Pirollo and Bryson Alef, it launched in 2015 with the simple goal of matching students with available scholarships: Input your age, interests, and other demographic information and Scholly would find potential fits. “My grandma always told me, ‘You have to work. No matter what your interests are, Scholly can help find money to support them. As a teenager in Alabama, Christopher Gray was a straight-A student, community volunteer, and relentless dreamer. Gray was still a college student himself when he created Scholly to help others pursuing a route that was all too familiar to him. As graduation drew closer, Gray turned to scholarships to cover the cost of his continuing education, but he quickly found that the work of hunting down and applying for college funds required significant time and energy, not to mention easy access to a computer. He’s spoken at the Obama Foundation’s My Brother’s Keeper summit and received the 2018 Smithsonian American Ingenuity Award. “This good thing happened to me,” he says, “and now maybe I can help people who otherwise may not be able to help themselves.”. " — Christopher Gray Scholly uses app technology to make the scholarship and financial-aid application process as efficient as possible. Christopher Gray is the founder and chief executive officer of Scholly, a mobile and web app that helps students find scholarships for college. Scholly was featured on ABC’s Shark Tank , landing a deal with Daymond John and Lori Greiner and sparking the biggest fight in Shark Tank history. Gray himself has earned more than a little attention as well. “The amounts are compelling,” Gray says, “but what’s just as powerful are the stories of people who get, like, the last $3,000 they need to enroll. Fortunately, his efforts bore fruit, starting with a $20,000 grant from the Horatio Alger Association of Distinguished Americans â the first of many he would receive. Christopher Gray (A): I’m Christopher Gray, the founder and CEO of Scholly, a web and mobile app that helps students find scholarships for college. Even as a young child growing up in Birmingham, Alabama, Christopher Grayâs interest in education was evident. “I saw a problem and I tried to fix it,” he says from a Hollywood office populated by a handful of coworkers and one very large dog named Milk. To help families cover this expense and minimize the debt that their children might face, a young entrepreneur named Christopher Gray developed Scholly, an app that connects students to scholarship opportunities that fit their unique circumstances. There’s also Scholly Editor, a web-based proofreader. (Greiner offered Gray his requested $40,000 without even asking questions. Gray … In total, Christopher Grayâs persistence earned him an incredible $1.3 million in scholarships, which he used to pave the way to a degree in business administration from Drexel University in Philadelphia. Here, weâll look at how he turned a struggle to fund his education into a service with hundreds of thousands of users nationwide. The Latest Information for Understanding Your Options. With graduation looming, Gray came to see college as a necessity, but one priced like a luxury item. into Scholly… The app is available on both web and mobile platforms, but note that itâs not free; the use of Schollyâs services will cost you $45 per year, which comes out to $3.75 a month. At times during his high school years, they were homeless. A lot of times, students just don’t know they exist.”, More good news was to come. Learn how Christopher Gray turned his struggle to fund his education into a national service to help people across the country achieve their dreams. Chris, can you tell us about your childhood background? How Christopher Gray’s app, Scholly, helps kids go to college. In their pages, Gray learned the value of recognizing â and capitalizing on â oneâs own potential, a philosophy that led him to excel as a high school student. Scholly Before Shark Tank. He was also the son of a single mother who’d lost her job to the recession. By the time the last one came in, Gray had amassed $1.3 million. Scholly is an app that gives students an … The name “Million Dollar Scholar” is a convenient headline that was bestowed on Gray by the local press and re-used by the likes of USA Today, Fox News and The Philadelphia Inquirer after he won $1.3 million in scholarship money. By the end of Grayâs presentation, heâd won the sharksâ interest and wound up walking out of the room with not one but two investors, Lori Greiner and Daymond John, who contributed a total of $40,000 to Schollyâs development in exchange for a 15% stake in the company. He did this for seven months. His story has been featured in some of the most prominent newspapers, magazines, and news programs in the U.S.; in 2016, Gray was placed at the top of the Forbes 30 Under 30 List for Social Entrepreneurship, and he received the Smithsonian American Ingenuity Award that same year. For many students, scholarships won with the help of resources like Scholly can cover tens of thousands of dollars in higher education expenses, but given the ever-growing costs associated with college, more might be required. In recent years, Gray has set about evolving Scholly into a full-service education app. One such business that Sharks were impressed with enough to invest was Scholly. The company has relocated from Philadelphia to California, into a sprawling corner office with mountain views. As Scholly members, they will also receive an exclusive $100 bonus to be applied toward their first payment. A Better Way To Find Money For College. I was actually still a college student at Drexel University when I created Scholly in an effort to help others pursuing a … His story soon reached the producers of Shark Tank, and the rest is Scholly history: Gray’s 60-second pitch resulted in a near-instant deal with Lori Greiner and Daymond John—and some viral offscreen dramatics. Also, how have social good projects played a role in your early life? The Solution: Scholly. Scholly is an online search platform that helps high school seniors, current undergraduates, and graduate students match and win scholarships. This insight led to the idea for an application that streamlines the process for everyone: Scholly. Christopher Gray is the founder and chief executive officer of Scholly, a mobile and web app that helps students find scholarships for college. “We originally created it to help with essays,” Gray says, “but a lot of kids are using it to get better grades and learn English, especially in underserved schools.” Mostly, he hopes to continue helping students reach dreams that circumstances might have once deemed impossible. Yet, as monikers go, it misses the mark. In realizing how broken and time consuming this process was, he created Scholly to make things much easier. It’s really powerful to experience that, because, OK, I was a homeless kid.”. To date, Scholly users have been awarded more than $100 million in scholarships, and the app has almost two million users. Whether it was 50 years ago or 5, Black Americans continue to contribute to this country's history of amazing achievements. Enter Scholly. Even Oprah weighed in when she named Gray to her Super Soul 100 list, which honors socially conscious leaders from a variety of industries. According to Tech Crunch, one of the creators of the Scholly Scholarship App, African-American Christopher Gray, won $1.3 million in scholarships to attend college. How many students had it discouraged from going or even applying to college? Scholly was featured on ABC’s Shark Tank, landing adeal with Daymond John and Lori Greiner and sparking the biggest fight in Shark Tankhistory. Christopher Gray and his co-founders got to working on a platform that would make the process of matching and applying to scholarships much more simplified. 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