College Contact

College Contact is an education technology venture that connects high school students with current university undergraduates for college admissions advising and mentorship. The platform uses a matching algorithm to pair applicants with undergraduate advisers whose interests and backgrounds align with theirs, addressing a market in which the large majority of college applicants navigate the application process without dedicated guidance and in which high school guidance counselors have limited time per student.

The company was founded by University of Virginia McIntire School of Commerce Class of 2023 graduates Sophie Smith and Leah Guesman. Advisers are recruited from undergraduate student populations across U.S. universities and are prepared through a training course built from interviews with college admissions officers and direct experience advising applicants on admissions essays. The stated mission is to make advising affordable and accessible to high school students globally, with particular relevance for first-generation and lower- to middle-income applicants who have fewer financial and informational resources.

Founding story

Sophie Smith launched College Contact in June 2020 after losing a summer internship with UBS during the first wave of the pandemic. Following an EOLO summer fellowship at UVA and an internship with the UVA-founded education venture Student Impact, she posted on TikTok promoting a summer program for high school students; the video went viral and high schoolers began contacting her about their college applications. She attached a Google help form to her TikTok account and collected over 800 waitlist responses within months, with nearly 3,000 students on the list at one point. Smith then recruited friends at universities around the U.S. to work as advisers, training them with a course she assembled from interviews with admissions officers and her own essay-writing experience. Leah Guesman joined in June 2021 as a college counselor and was invited to become co-founder in April 2023, later serving as COO.

Business model

The company operates a platform that matches high school students with undergraduate advisers, who have worked with the business as contractors rather than full-time employees.

Traction

By the end of 2022 the venture had 16 contractors and had helped hundreds of students gain acceptances; a later company profile cites more than 1,000 students helped to an acceptance at a target university. The founders' early demand signal came from a waitlist that reached nearly 3,000 students.

Latest developments

The founders moved to full-time work on the company following their 2023 graduation from the University of Virginia, after a series of competition wins and recognition at the Tom Tom Festival.