Has it been four years already?

This past month I graduated from NYU with a dual degree in Marketing and Economics. I decided to take this moment to look back and reflect on everything that has happened over the past four years –both good and not so good- and how it has impacted the MoreThanGrades.com website, and how it has focused our company on what the mission of the website should be.

I have been very fortunate, and privileged, to have attended NYU, specifically the Stern School of Business. During my time at NYU, I had the opportunity to meet many great educators, business people, and entrepreneurs. I learned from the best that the business world has to offer, and also had the opportunity to travel abroad and get a global perspective on business. I also learned some very valuable lessons not taught in books as I took the website from the demo site where we created it to the live site where it now resides. To say that my four years at NYU were frenzied and went by quickly would be an understatement.

As I mentioned on the website, the idea of MoreThanGrades.com was not mine alone. Early on, I knew that undertaking the task of launching a website from the ground up would not be easy. As a freshman in college, I had no idea exactly how difficult and costly it would be to create and manage such a complex entity.

Early into the process I knew I needed help. My roommate Paul, also a business major, was intrigued by the idea and agreed to become one of my partners. Together, we took on the task of designing, testing, building, and finally launching MoreThanGrades.com. At NYU, I learned that forming partnerships and alliances with others would also strengthen our website so I proceeded to contact others around the web who might be willing to help. Today, we have several such partnerships in place, all allowing us to add content and depth to our site.

As a high school student, I was introduced to Facebook, and quickly saw the power of social networking. I knew we needed to include aspects of this in our site, but I also understood that a site where students place personal information for colleges to view should not be a social site, rather a professional site. My original goal was to have a place where students could show the best of what they have to offer. That goal has remained unchanged. But as with most websites, we were not alone. Shortly before we went live, another website launched that allowed students to create similar profiles. This website promoted socializing, forums, and patterned itself after Facebook –the exact opposite of a professional space for students. Undaunted, we moved forward with our ideas and have successfully enrolled thousands of students. As we continue to grow, we have integrated feeds from Twitter, Youtube, and have introduced several other social media applications without losing our professional look and feel.

As we move forward, we continue to look at and evaluate the role of social media and how best to incorporate the current technology into our site. The goal is to provide students and colleges with the tools necessary to reach each other.

At the end of September, we will be attending the NACAC convention where we will unveil the next generation of MoreThanGrades.com. Until then, stay tuned for our next installment: What college related issues are important to students.