College Contact

Bridging the Counseling Gap for College-Bound Students

When Sophie Smith posted a short TikTok video during her first year of college, she didn’t expect it to change the trajectory of her life. COVID-19 had just shuttered campuses and disrupted opportunities for students everywhere. Working remotely for a nonprofit focused on high school leadership development, Smith was tasked with recruiting students — a role she found daunting. “I wasn’t a TikToker,” she says. “I had like two followers — probably my mom and dad.” But the video went viral overnight, bringing in 800 sign-ups and flooding her inbox with messages from students asking for help with college prep, career readiness, and life planning.

“What broke my heart was seeing so many kids say, ‘I have no one to help me,’” Smith recalls. She put up a small website offering to help “a few” students. Within days, there was a waitlist of thousands from across the country.

What began as an accidental side project soon became College Contact — a peer-based advising service dedicated to closing the gap left by America’s overburdened school counseling system. In the U.S., 20% of high schools don’t have a counselor at all, and in those that do, the ratio is often one counselor to 400 students, leaving most teens with less than 10 minutes of advising per year. Private college counselors can charge hundreds of dollars per hour — or more — putting personalized guidance out of reach for most families.

College Contact partners with public schools and districts, especially those with low counselor counts and high student need, to provide one-on-one, near-peer mentoring at no cost to families. Since its launch, the team — made up largely of recent graduates — has helped more than 3,000 families with college pathway planning, with 86% of students gaining admission to their top-choice program.

Smith’s vision for the future is both ambitious and adaptive. “In this age of AI, students are facing rapidly changing options for their future,” she says. “We’re always evaluating how we show up for students, families, counselors, and schools — and how we can override the traditional systems that create these huge gaps.”

The road hasn’t been without challenges. At just 24, Smith and her co-founder are running their first company, managing contracts and budgets in the millions while wearing the hats of CEO, CFO, and CMO. But their youth is also a strength. “We just went through the system our students are in,” she says. “They feel the authenticity coming from us.”

For Smith, the work is deeply personal and endlessly rewarding. “Being a founder is the best job in the world,” she says. “You get to solve problems, brainstorm with others, and be the first mover in initiating change where it’s needed most.”