You don’t need to know the perfect prompt.
Ask Dakota what to study next, why you keep getting something wrong, what your latest test tells you, which colleges fit you, what you still need to research, how to think more deeply about your application—or simply what you need to get done this week.
Dakota remembers your test prep, scores, assignments, Thrive findings, college research, application work and deadlines. So every conversation can start with what Dakota already knows about you.
Here are 98 things you can ask.
Start Here: What Should I Do Next?
Sometimes the hardest part is simply knowing where to start.
- “I have 30 minutes. What is the most useful thing I could work on right now?”
- “What are my three highest-priority tasks this week?”
- “Look across my SAT prep, college research and applications. What needs my attention most?”
- “What have I left unfinished?”
- “I’m overwhelmed. Put everything I need to do in priority order.”
- “What should I finish before my next meeting with my tutor or counselor?”
- “What did I make progress on this week, and what should I tackle next?”
Workspace 1: Test Prep
Understand My SAT Performance
Dakota doesn’t just see a test score. It can look across your coverage, accuracy, speed, mastery, assignments and previous tests to understand what is actually holding you back.
- “Analyze my last 30 days of SAT work. What are the three biggest things holding back my score?”
- “Which Math skills have I still not covered?”
- “Which Reading and Writing skills have I still not covered?”
- “Which skills am I accurate at that are medium difficulty but still missing at hard difficulty?”
- “Which skills did I use to be good at but have started to forget?”
- “Where am I getting questions right but taking too long?”
- “Which question types are slowing me down most?”
- “I keep scoring around the same level. Is my plateau mainly coverage, accuracy, speed, mastery—or a combination?”
- “Which three skills would give me the biggest opportunity to improve my score right now?”
- “My Math score is much stronger than Reading and Writing. What is driving the difference?”
- “I’m already scoring highly in Math. What should I focus on to push my score higher?”
- “What have I genuinely mastered?”
- “What looks mastered from one assignment but isn’t consistent enough yet?”
Help Me Understand What I’m Getting Wrong
A wrong answer is useful if you understand why it happened.
- “Review this question with me, but don’t give me the answer immediately.”
- “Give me one hint at a time until I can solve it myself.”
- “What was the SAT trying to test in this question?”
- “What trap did I fall for?”
- “Did I miss this because I didn’t know the skill, applied it incorrectly, rushed or made a careless mistake?”
- “I thought my answer was right. Help me work out where my reasoning went wrong.”
- “I know this grammar rule. Why do I keep missing questions that test it?”
- “Show me where to look in this passage without telling me the answer.”
- “I don’t understand this explanation. Explain the concept a different way.”
- “Is there a faster way to solve this Math question?”
- “Ask me to explain why each wrong answer is wrong before we move on.”
- “Which mistakes from this assignment keep repeating in my other work?”
Practice Smarter
Once Dakota knows what is wrong, it can help you practice the right thing rather than simply doing more questions.
- “Give me five questions on the skill I’m weakest at.”
- “I’ve mastered the medium questions. Give me hard questions now.”
- “Give me three more questions similar to the one I just missed.”
- “Give me an unfamiliar version of this question so I can prove I understand the skill rather than the example.”
- “Quiz me on boundaries and stop after every mistake so I can explain the rule.”
- “Give me a timed set targeting the questions I can answer correctly but too slowly.”
- “Create a short practice session around the three traps I fall for most.”
- “Mix skills I’ve recently learned with older skills I might be forgetting.”
- “Make the next question harder.”
- “Have I shown enough mastery of this skill to move on?”
Prepare for Test Day
Upload your Bluebook or official test results and then talk to Dakota about what actually happened. How a test felt matters too.
- “Analyze my latest Bluebook test using everything you already know about my SAT work.”
- “I’m not sure which part of the test hurt me most. Can you help me figure it out?”
- “I felt rushed at the end of Reading and Writing. Was I actually taking longer on those questions?”
- “I thought the second Math module went terribly. Was it really as bad as it felt?”
- “Which questions did I feel confident about but got wrong?”
- “Which questions did I feel confident about but got wrong? What did I misunderstand or what trap did I fall for?”
- “What should I work on between this test and my next official SAT?”
- “My SAT is Saturday. What should I focus on this week—and what should I stop worrying about?”
Workspace 2: College Research
Understand Myself Through Thrive
Before asking where you should go to college, understand the environments in which you are most likely to thrive.
- “Explain my Thrive Report to me.”
- “What does my Thrive Report say I need from a college environment?”
- “Which Thrive findings seem most important for my college search?”
- “What stands out most in my Thrive results?”
- “Ask me questions about the parts of my Thrive Report I’m not sure I agree with.”
- “What should I pay attention to when I visit colleges based on my Thrive Report?”
- “Which parts of college life seem particularly important for me to investigate?”
- “Turn my Thrive findings into five questions I should ask myself when comparing colleges.”
Build and Research My College List
Dakota can connect what it knows about you with deep research into individual colleges.
- “Which colleges fit my Thrive Report particularly well—and why?”
- “Where does my current college list not line up with what my Thrive Report says matters to me?”
- “What kind of college might be missing from my list?”
- “Compare Brown and Dartmouth for me based on what matters most to me.”
- “Compare these colleges on teaching style, curriculum, campus culture and student life.”
- “Research how this university is using AI in the subject I want to study.”
- “Research the undergraduate research opportunities available in my area of interest.”
- “Research entrepreneurship opportunities relevant to what I want to do.”
- “Research the athletic opportunities and requirements relevant to me.”
- “What should I investigate before I visit this college?”
- “What should I research about this university before I start thinking about its supplement?”
- “I’ve finished researching this college. What important questions have I still not answered?”
Workspace 3: Application Workspace
Help Me Think Through My Application Ideas
Dakota does not decide what your story should be or write your application for you. It helps you think.
Bring Dakota your experiences, reflections, research and drafts. Dakota can ask questions, help you examine your own ideas and make sure you are doing the thinking that produces an application that is genuinely yours.
- “Ask me questions to help me work out what I actually want to say in my personal statement.”
- “I’m thinking about writing about rowing. Help me think through what this experience actually means to me.”
- “I have three experiences I’m considering. Ask me questions about each one so I can work out what they reveal about me.”
- “What questions should I answer for myself before I start drafting?”
- “What does this application prompt actually want me to think about?”
- “Help me think through which of my own ideas best answers this prompt.”
- “Ask me questions that will help me explain why this experience mattered to me.”
- “What changed in how I thought, acted or understood myself after this experience? Help me work that out.”
- “Am I spending too much time describing what happened and not enough time thinking about why it mattered?”
- “What do you understand about me from what I’ve written?”
- “What important question about this story have I not answered yet?”
- “Where am I being vague about what I actually thought or felt?”
- “Does this reveal something about me that isn’t already obvious from my activities list?”
- “Am I repeating information from somewhere else in my application instead of adding another dimension?”
- “Does this sound like the way I normally express myself?”
- “I’ve researched this college. Ask me questions that will help me work out why these particular things matter to me.”
Planning & Deadlines
Keep Everything Moving
College admissions generates tests, assignments, meetings, essays, research and deadlines across months.
Dakota can help keep all of it connected.
- “What is due this week?”
- “What do I have due before my next counselor meeting?”
- “What has my tutor assigned me?”
- “Show me everything overdue.”
- “Add my SAT practice assignment to my To-Do list for Thursday after school.”
- “Remind me tomorrow to upload my Bluebook results.”
- “Move this assignment to Friday and update my plan.”
- “Schedule time for me to finish my college research before my counselor meeting.”
- “Show me my upcoming tutoring sessions, application deadlines and assignments in one place.”
- “I have three application deadlines coming up. Help me organize the work backwards from each deadline.”
- “What do I need to do today?”
- “I can spend an hour after school each day this week. Help me plan what to work on each day.”
The Bottom Line
Dakota is not another place to search for generic answers.
It knows the work you have already done.
It remembers your tests, assignments, mistakes, progress, Thrive findings, college research, application thinking and deadlines. You can ask a question in one workspace and Dakota can use what it has learned about you everywhere else.
So you don’t have to keep rebuilding the context.
And you don’t have to figure out the entire college journey at once.
Sometimes the most useful question really is:
“Dakota, what should I do next?”