Mastery.org
About Mastery.org

Moving schools beyond grades

Mastery.org is the company behind the Mastery Transcript® and the consortium of schools that use it. We help schools show what students can actually do, and we help colleges read it.

Graduates celebrating at a member school commencement
  1. 2017

    Launches with 54 founding schools

    0 accepting colleges

  2. 2019

    First transcript reaches a college

    55+ accepting colleges by spring

  3. 2024

    Joins ETS

    500+ accepting colleges

  4. 2026

    A new chapter as Mastery.org

    823 accepting colleges

What we do

A record of real student work, built by schools and read by colleges

Mastery Transcript dashboard showing a student's competency-based credit profile

Schools build the record

Each school defines its own competencies and builds every Mastery Transcript from real coursework and the skills students demonstrate, not just a letter grade.

The admissions view of a Mastery Transcript

Colleges read it

Admissions offices read the Mastery Transcript as easily as traditional grades, and our team reaches out to every college a student applies to.

3,000+

Students admitted to college with a Mastery Transcript

823

Colleges and universities accept the Mastery Transcript

150+

Member schools and districts in the consortium

Our beginning

A better way to show what students know

The idea sparked in 2014 at Hawken School in Cleveland, where head of school Scott Looney saw the most basic of all high school documents, the transcript, as a boulder in the way of high school innovation. The Mastery Transcript Consortium® launched in 2017 with 54 founding schools, and the movement has been growing since.

Scott Looney, founder of the Mastery Transcript Consortium

That 99 percent of high school transcripts follow an identical format is a vestige of an outdated industrial age. We hope to reflect a new age that demands a new approach to education.

Scott Looney

Founder of MTC; Head of School, Hawken

A new chapter

From the Consortium to Mastery.org

In 2026 the Mastery Transcript Consortium moved on from ETS under new ownership and now goes to market as Mastery.org. The name is new; the mission is not.

Read the letter from our founders

What stays the same for members

  • The product you use stays the same.
  • Your pricing stays the same.
  • The community, symposium, and events continue.

New ownership means more investment in the movement, not less.

The Team

The people you'll work with

  • Matt Sornson

    Matt Sornson

    Co-Founder & CEO

    Matt co-founded Clearbit and led it through its acquisition. He grew up in a family of Michigan educators and started the new Mastery.org to change what schools can see and say about what students actually know.

  • Aaron Rasmussen

    Aaron Rasmussen

    Co-Founder

    Aaron co-founded MasterClass and founded Outlier.org. The son of a rural Oregon science teacher, he has spent his career making world-class learning accessible to more students.

  • Jason Cummings

    Jason Cummings

    Director of Member Engagement

    Jason has spent years working directly with MTC member schools, leading competency-based learning workshops and guiding schools from their first portrait of a learner to sending their first transcripts.

  • Matthew Alexander

    Matthew Alexander

    Growth Engineer

    Matthew builds the systems that help schools discover Mastery.org. He also writes about why traditional measures of learning are breaking, from grade inflation to the limits of the GPA.

  • Waseem Hussain

    Waseem Hussain

    Engineer

    Waseem builds the tools schools use to turn authentic student work into mastery-based records and share them with the 800+ colleges that accept them.

  • John Otander

    John Otander

    Engineer

    John builds the Mastery.org platform. He previously built data and developer tools at Clearbit, Gatsby, and Components AI.

  • Peter Laipson

    Peter Laipson

    Member Engagement

    Peter has spent three decades in secondary and higher education. He helps member schools turn mastery-based learning into daily practice, from grading conversations to faculty buy-in.

  • Iliana Gonzalez

    Iliana Gonzalez

    Higher Education Engagement

    Iliana works with admissions teams to make the Mastery Transcript easy to read and trust. She brings fifteen years in education and enrollment.

Advisors guiding the movement

Education Advisory Council

  • Scott Looney

    Scott Looney

    Chair of the Advisory Council Founder of MTC Head of School, Hawken

  • Tim Knowles

    Tim Knowles

    President, Carnegie Foundation

    On a mission to replace the Carnegie Unit with competency-based learning.

  • Susie Bell

    Susie Bell

    Senior Advisor; former Superintendent

    Proved a whole district could go mastery-based.

  • Andrew Ho

    Andrew Ho

    Professor of Education, Harvard

    Keeps the measurement science as rigorous as the mission is ambitious.

  • Denise Pope

    Denise Pope

    Co-Founder, Challenge Success; Senior Lecturer, Stanford

    Has the receipts on what grade pressure does to kids.

  • Ted Dintersmith

    Ted Dintersmith

    Author, What School Could Be

    Visited 200 schools in all fifty states to find out what school could be.

  • Laura Slover

    Laura Slover

    Managing Director, Skills for the Future, ETS

    Making durable skills as measurable as math.

  • Mike Flanagan

    Mike Flanagan

    CEO, E3n

    Built the platform that turned the mastery idea into a working transcript.

  • Debra Wilson

    Debra Wilson

    President, NAIS

    Brings the voice of the independent school world to the council.

  • Lisa Reyes

    Lisa Reyes

    Psychometrician, Salesforce

    Knows what employers actually accept as proof of a skill.