[kifler]

Genuine question: What value proposition does your company offer? Can't I get these same questions answered from a variety of different sources?

Additionally, some of the mentor responses lack a certain level of professionalism to be called a mentor. Example: "Question: Hi I am applying to NYU this fall. I have never visited NYU before because I live all the way in California. I was wondering if you could share your experience starting at NYU? Also any background info like where you came from, how was the transition, did you have to move far, etc.? Any extra information you want to add would be rlly helpful. Thanks in advance!

Answer: Absolutely! I'm from Chicago, Originally. (not the actual city, the suburbs. Fucking Suburbia, man.) I hope it makes you feel better to know that I'd never visited NYU before actually ..."

[nisthana]

Sorry, I should have replied here-- @kifler - Mentr is a peer to peer mentoring platform for college and career advice. It lets high schoolers, who are unable to find any help related to college (except for factual info available on google), with real college students to get college advice. It fosters peer to peer communication, which is exactly whats happening right now. It does not mandate someone should have a degree in "mentorship" (if there is anything like that) but allows free information to be served. In the example below, the NYU student just felt like "fucking suburbia" and thats what she wrote. Moreover, as a company, we love when such "open" discussions happen and not afraid to hide it. Thats why you see this is as the top thread. If anyone feels all the communication between peers should be professional or highly intellectual, they need to hire professional college counselors. Was I able to answer your question satisfactorily?

[kifler]

So what's stopping me from checking into r/nyu and asking a multitude people to respond?

Where is the money to be made?

What makes a freshman mentor qualified to actually talk about the breadth of a program or a career when they have little to no exposure of a full 4 year program or job-track?

There are a number of questions that aren't answered succinctly on your site (at least that 'pop-out' at me) or within your post.

[nisthana]

These are good questions. Thanks for asking them. 1. Why not go to r/nyu - I never said Mentr is the only place to get into but Mentr makes sure the students are real, and we verify their identities. Not sure if reddit does that? 2. Money is made when mentor renders a service like reviewing someone's college essay, or hosting someone for a campus tour. They make 70% of the transaction 3. They are qualified because they made it to their school. Also as I mentioned, the platform is for peer to peer communication. As long as the mentors have relevant experience to share, and are willing to help someone we will accept them as mentors. We also personally interview every mentor to make sure they are a good fit. 4. Thanks for the input on the website. We are struggling for resources to make a top notch site and that's one of the reasons we really wanted to be in YC so we can fix these loose ends. Really appreciate you asking me these questions!