Why We Verify Students
CollegeTalk is built around real conversations with real college students. That's why every college student must complete our verification process before offering conversations on the platform.
Verification helps prospective students feel confident that the people they're speaking with are actually current college students at the schools they say they attend.
Our goal is simple: create a community where prospective students can learn from genuine college experiences while knowing that the students they connect with have gone through our verification process.
Verification confirms your student status based on the information you provide. It does not mean that CollegeTalk guarantees or endorses your opinions, advice, experiences, or statements about your college or university.
What You'll Need
During verification, we'll ask for information that helps us confirm that you're currently attending the college or university listed on your profile.
Depending on your situation, this may include:
- An active educational email address.
- A current academic transcript.
- Your college or university information.
- Your major and year in school.
- A profile photograph.
- An introduction video.
- Other information reasonably necessary to verify your student status.
You may not need to provide every item listed above. The information we request can depend on what is reasonably necessary to complete your verification.
How Verification Works
Once you submit the information requested during onboarding, the CollegeTalk team reviews it to determine whether there is enough information to verify your student status.
Verification may include reviewing your educational email, transcript, profile information, and other information you provide during the verification process.
Our team reviews verification information to make sure it reasonably supports the school, student status, and other applicable information associated with your account.
Once your student status has been successfully verified, you'll be able to continue setting up your profile, availability, and interview offerings in accordance with the requirements of the platform.
Verification is not an endorsement of you or your opinions. It simply helps us confirm that you've provided sufficient information to demonstrate that you're a current college student.
Academic Transcripts & GPA
Your academic transcript may be used as part of the verification process to help confirm your current student status and applicable academic information.
Where sufficient information is available, CollegeTalk may derive or determine your GPA from the transcript you provide.
GPA information derived from your transcript may be used as part of the verification process and, where applicable, may be displayed as academic information on your CollegeTalk profile.
CollegeTalk may not be able to determine a GPA from every transcript. Whether GPA information can be determined or displayed may depend on the format, completeness, grading system, or other characteristics of the transcript provided.
If your transcript contains academic information that is unclear or incomplete, we may request additional information before completing verification.
What Happens to Your Verification Information?
We understand that some of the information used for verification can be sensitive. We do not make your verification documents publicly available through CollegeTalk.
Your transcript and other verification documents are used for verification purposes and are not shared with other CollegeTalk users.
Any GPA or other academic information derived from your transcript is separate from the underlying transcript itself. Where applicable, this information may be displayed as part of your CollegeTalk profile.
Verification materials are handled separately from the information that appears on your public-facing CollegeTalk profile.
We retain verification materials only for as long as reasonably necessary to maintain verified student accounts, operate the platform, investigate issues, prevent fraud, maintain safety and security, and meet legal or operational requirements.
What Other Students Can See
Your private verification documents are not displayed on your CollegeTalk profile. Prospective students and other authenticated CollegeTalk users see your profile information rather than the underlying documents you submitted for verification.
Depending on your profile and the information available through the verification process, this may include:
- Your name.
- Your college or university.
- Your major and year in school.
- Your biography and interests.
- Your profile photo.
- Your introduction video.
- Ratings and reviews.
- Applicable academic information, including GPA where CollegeTalk has derived or determined it from your submitted transcript.
Your academic transcript and other private verification documents are not made available to other users through CollegeTalk.
What If Verification Doesn't Work?
Sometimes we may not have enough information to verify an account on the first attempt. If that happens, don't worry. We may ask you for additional information or clarification so that we can complete the verification process.
If a verification application is rejected, CollegeTalk may provide a reason for the rejection and may allow you to correct an issue and resubmit your information where appropriate.
Providing false, misleading, altered, or fraudulent information can result in your application being rejected or your account being suspended or terminated.
Our verification process is designed to protect the CollegeTalk community, so we may take additional steps when information provided during verification appears inconsistent or cannot reasonably establish student status.
Keep Your Information Up to Date
Your CollegeTalk profile should accurately reflect your current college experience.
If your college, major, year in school, or other important profile information changes, you're responsible for keeping your information reasonably accurate and up to date.
CollegeTalk may request additional verification if we need to confirm that your student status or profile information remains accurate.
Keeping your information current helps prospective students know that the profile they're viewing accurately represents the student they're considering booking a conversation with.
Your Privacy Matters
We know that verification can require you to share information that you wouldn't normally put on a public profile. We take that distinction seriously.
CollegeTalk uses information you provide to verify student status, operate the platform, maintain account security, facilitate interviews and payments, prevent fraud, and help keep the CollegeTalk community safe.
We do not sell your personal information. Information may be shared with trusted service providers when necessary to operate CollegeTalk, or when required for legal, security, fraud-prevention, or other legitimate purposes described in our Privacy Policy.
You can learn more about how CollegeTalk collects, uses, stores, and protects personal information in our Privacy Policy .
The requirements and responsibilities associated with student verification are also described in our Terms of Service .