Scholarlink Portal
International Student Recruitment SaaS
THE CHALLENGE
The Problem
An international study-abroad agency needed a single platform to manage the entire student recruitment pipeline — from public campaign landing pages and affiliate referrals, through student applications and document management, to consultations, payouts, and contract generation — replacing a fragmented mix of spreadsheets, email chains, and third-party tools.
ENGINEERING APPROACH
My Approach
I built the platform as three interconnected layers. The core is a React (TypeScript) SPA serving four distinct role-based interfaces: students track applications and requirements; professionals manage their student rosters and earnings; affiliates run referral campaigns and request payouts; admins oversee the entire pipeline from a dashboard covering campaigns, users, study programs, countries, services, and consultations. The backend is an Express/MongoDB REST API with JWT auth, Google and Facebook OAuth, Calendly webhook integration for live consultation scheduling, DOCX contract generation via docxtemplater, and automated email flows via Nodemailer. Alongside the main platform, I built a standalone internal CRM (Next.js 16 + Prisma/SQLite). I also performed a full security audit — resolving JWT cookie migration, CSRF middleware, NoSQL injection protection, brute-force rate limiting, and session persistence.
OUTCOME & IMPACT
Outcome & Deliverables
The platform has been live in production and actively used by the client for over 2 years, handling real student enrollments, affiliate commissions, and consultation bookings across multiple countries.