OpenAI to bring College Planner to ChatGPT for Teens

OpenAI frames College Planner as a way into a process that many families find stressful: applications, deadlines, and financial aid. It says students use ChatGPT to plan applications, track deadlines, research schools, and understand financial aid, and that its goal is to make help more accessible regardless of financial circumstances, alongside counselors, advisers, and families. The company says it is not trying to take over the personal work of figuring out where to apply.

The rollout is paired with guardrails and outside input. ChatGPT for Teens is the default experience automatically applied to accounts identified as under 18, and it includes reminders to take breaks. OpenAI says it is supporting College Advising Corps, a nonprofit that places recent college graduates as advisers in under-resourced high schools, to expand into new states and create an AI fellowship program.

Separately, OpenAI says it will support Boston Children's Hospital's Digital Wellness Lab and its Student Advisory Council over the next three years. For the 2026–27 school year, the Lab will bring together ~22 students across two tracks. How much influence those students ultimately have on product and model decisions is likely to be the measure of whether this is a genuine seat at the table or a listening exercise.