I was the first in my family
to navigate college admissions.
When admission season came, I was on my own. One afternoon a number I didn’t recognise called and said a “college counselling event” was happening that weekend. Good colleges, real opportunities. I went.
Five colleges had banners up. Slick decks. Glossy brochures. A man in a blazer pulled me aside, looked at my marks, and said my profile was perfect for one of them. But seats were filling fast. To hold mine, I’d need to put ₹10,000 down within two hours.
I went home and did what any seventeen-year-old does. I opened Google. “Top 10 colleges near me.” There it was. Third on the list. I exhaled. If it was on the list, it had to be real.
I didn’t know yet that those lists are paid placements. I had used a sponsored result to validate a sponsored pitch. Two ads, vouching for each other. And me in the middle, calling it research.
I paid the advance. I took the admission. Within two months the picture cleared. The faculty on the website didn’t teach my year. The “modern labs” had four working machines for sixty students. The placement record belonged to a different batch. The college I was sold and the college I was sitting in were two different places.
Edwiso is the version of the internet I needed at seventeen and didn’t have. A real senior. A real conversation. Forty minutes that would have saved me four years. I’m building it so no one else has to learn the way I did, by paying the fee first and finding out after.