Alpha Academia was started in 2014 by Sarah Ballard, a Georgetown University and Law Center alumna. After college, she was endorsed to compete for the Rhodes Scholarship and won the George Mitchell Scholarship. She has her Masters and her Juris Doctor. She was never rejected from a single school to which she applied, including the Ivy League, graduate school, and law school. She has personally won more than $150,000 in competitive, merit scholarships and has coached high school and graduate students through their admissions and scholarship applications. She has read and reviewed applications for the Mitchell and Fulbright scholarships and has volunteered to do admission interviews at the undergraduate level.