AI-Powered Scholarship Discovery and Community Platform

Cairo University Graduation Project

ScholarPath is an intelligent scholarship discovery platform that helps students find, track, and apply for scholarships worldwide. The platform features AI-powered recommendations that match students with relevant opportunities based on their profiles, a community hub for collaboration and knowledge sharing, and an advisor consultation marketplace. ScholarPath supports both English and Arabic with full right-to-left (RTL) layout support.

• Smart Scholarship Discovery -- AI-driven recommendations that match students with scholarships based on profile data, academic background, and preferences
• Role-Based Access Control -- Distinct experiences for Students, Consultants, Companies, and Admins with tailored dashboards and permissions
• Real-Time Communication -- Live notifications and chat powered by SignalR for instant updates on scholarship deadlines and messages
• Community Hub -- Groups, posts, and discussion threads where students collaborate, share experiences, and support each other
• Advisor / Consultant Marketplace -- Book consultations with verified advisors for application reviews, essay feedback, and scholarship guidance
• Bilingual Support -- Full English and Arabic localization with proper RTL layout rendering
• Profile-Based Matching -- Intelligent scholarship filtering based on GPA, field of study, nationality, and other profile attributes
• Health Check & Rate Limiting -- /health endpoint for monitoring and built-in rate limiting to protect API resources

• New users register with no platform role (Unassigned) and IsOnboardingComplete=false
• During onboarding:
  • Selecting Student activates the account immediately (Role=Student, AccountStatus=Active)
  • Selecting Consultant or Company creates an upgrade request and keeps the account Role=Unassigned, AccountStatus=Pending
• Admin approval is required before consultant/company users receive their requested role
• While onboarding is incomplete or account status is pending, frontend route guards keep the user on the onboarding/pending state

ScholarPath follows Clean Architecture principles, organized into four distinct layers:

The backend is designed for the CQRS pattern with MediatR to separate read and write operations. Currently, the Auth and Admin controllers implement business logic directly at the controller level for bootstrapping speed; these will be migrated to MediatR handlers as the domain stabilizes. All other feature controllers will follow the CQRS pattern from the start.

ScholarPath/
├── server/                            # .NET Backend
│   ├── src/
│   │   ├── ScholarPath.API/           # Controllers, Middleware, Program.cs
│   │   ├── ScholarPath.Application/   # CQRS Commands/Queries, DTOs, Validators
│   │   ├── ScholarPath.Domain/        # Entities, Enums, Interfaces
│   │   └── ScholarPath.Infrastructure/# EF Core, Services, Caching
│   └── tests/
│       ├── ScholarPath.UnitTests/
│       └── ScholarPath.IntegrationTests/
├── client/                            # React Frontend
│   └── src/
│       ├── components/                # Reusable UI components
│       ├── pages/                     # Page components
│       ├── services/                  # API service layer
│       ├── stores/                    # Zustand state stores
│       ├── theme/                     # MUI theming
│       ├── i18n/                      # Internationalization
│       ├── hooks/                     # Custom React hooks
│       ├── utils/                     # Utility functions and helpers
│       ├── test/                      # Test utilities and setup
│       └── types/                     # TypeScript type definitions
├── docs/                              # Documentation & Diagrams
└── docker-compose.yml                 # Development infrastructure

• .NET 10 SDK
• Node.js 20+
• SQL Server or Docker Desktop

Start the required services (SQL Server and Redis) using Docker Compose:

docker compose up -d

cd server/src/ScholarPath.API

# Restore dependencies
dotnet restore

# Apply database migrations
dotnet ef database update --project ../ScholarPath.Infrastructure

# Run the API server
dotnet run

The API will be available at http://localhost:5100 by default.

cd client

# Install dependencies
npm install

# Start the development server
npm run dev

The frontend will be available at http://localhost:3000 by default.

Backend tests:

cd server
dotnet test

Frontend tests:

cd client
npm test

Create an appsettings.Development.json in server/src/ScholarPath.API/ with the following configuration:

{
  "ConnectionStrings": {
    "DefaultConnection": "Server=localhost,1433;Database=ScholarPathDb;User Id=sa;Password=YourPassword;TrustServerCertificate=true"
  },
  "Redis": {
    "ConnectionString": "localhost:6379",
    "Enabled": true
  },
  "JwtSettings": {
    "SecretKey": "your-secret-key-here",
    "Issuer": "ScholarPath",
    "Audience": "ScholarPathApp",
    "AccessTokenExpirationMinutes": 60,
    "RefreshTokenExpirationDays": 7
  }
}

Create a .env file in client/ for frontend configuration:

VITE_API_URL=http://localhost:5100/api/v1

Interactive API documentation is available via Swagger UI when the backend is running in Development mode:

http://localhost:5100/swagger

We welcome contributions. Please read our Contributing Guide for details on the development workflow, branch naming conventions, commit message format, and pull request requirements.

This project is licensed under the MIT License. See the LICENSE file for details.