Connect

Choosing a college after 12th grade is one of the most important decisions in a student’s life, yet it’s often made with incomplete or misleading information. Most students rely on brochures, rankings, coaching center advice, or outdated forum discussions. They compare cutoffs, campus photos, and placement statistics without truly understanding what everyday life in that college looks like. The result? Many students enter institutions with expectations that don’t match reality. Some don’t know about opportunities like branch-slide options in IITs and NITs. Some are unaware of better IIITs or government colleges available within their rank range. Others join expensive private institutions without clear visibility into academics, faculty quality, coding culture, peer environment, internships, or actual placement scenarios beyond headline numbers. The problem isn’t a lack of ambition. It’s a lack of transparency. Connect was built to solve exactly this. Connect is a student-driven platform that bridges the gap between expectations and real experiences. It enables current college students to share honest insights about academics, placements, campus culture, workload, peer competition, opportunities, and hidden realities of institutions that rarely make it into brochures. Students can write openly or anonymously, ensuring they can speak freely without fear of judgment or institutional pressure. The goal is not to criticize any college, but to present truthful, constructive information so that future students can make informed decisions. Beyond written insights, Connect allows students who have just completed 12th grade to book live one-on-one sessions with seniors currently studying in their target colleges. Instead of guessing or relying on second-hand advice, they can directly ask: • How are placements really? • Is branch change realistic? • How competitive is coding culture? • What is the academic pressure like? • How are hostels and campus life? • Is the fee worth the outcome? This transforms a blind decision into an informed one. At the same time, Connect empowers college students to become paid mentors. Seniors are compensated per session for sharing their time and knowledge, creating a transparent and value-driven ecosystem. We built Connect over the course of a semester as students ourselves. We experienced the confusion firsthand. We saw peers regret their choices. We realized that what students truly need is not more rankings, they need clarity. Connect stands for transparency, not negativity. Every college deserves respect. Our mission is simply to ensure that students choose the right college for themselves based on real insight rather than assumptions. Better decisions today mean fewer regrets tomorrow. That is what Connect is building one honest conversation at a time.