Stepping onto Carnegie Mellon's Pittsburgh campus for his first overnight visit, the prospective student experiences college on hyperspeed. He sits in on an engineering course, is shown the ropes of college parties and dorm life by the tennis team and his Hamerschlag roommates, and he learns that the tastiest dinner choice at the Tartans Pavilion is pizza. But the moment that makes the biggest impression, the moment that Neil Soni didn't see during other college visits, is a simple one: He notices a group of students working together. For the high-school senior, witnessing that "very open ... team-oriented atmosphere" is the final assurance that Carnegie Mellon is the right place to spend his next four years.
By the time Soni has settled into his sophomore-year studies in biomedical engineering and chemical engineering, his brother is on the hunt for a similarly great college fit. When he asks his older brother for help in narrowing down a list of potential schools, Soni realizes that his collegiate experience won't help shed light on the other universities his brother is considering. So, Soni connects his brother with a friend at Michigan, one of his brother's top choices, figuring that his friend would have thoughts to share about campus life in Ann Arbor. He does, and it's a deciding factor when Soni's brother ultimately enrolls there.
Meanwhile, the brotherly assistance gives Soni an idea: Why not create a network between high-school students and college students, rather than relying on friends of friends for insights?
To test the idea, Soni connects, via email, 10 students at his former high school with students at colleges where they've applied. The candid exchanges are a hit with the future college students, and Soni subsequently creates The College People, a networking and consultation Web site for high-school students.
The idea has developed from a simple email exchange to a variety of application-assistance packages-such as essay feedback, mock interviews, and expert advice from former admissions officers-in addition to the student-to-student connection.
Soni says The College People is about breaking down information barriers so that students who aren't able to visit particular schools can still get a feel for the institutions, much like he did when he first visited Carnegie Mellon. "I've found that happiness in college is really based on the people and the environment of the school."
-Olivia O'Connor (DC'13)
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