BetterMynd may change the future of campus mental health.
Cody Semrau ’14 was struggling. During his senior year at Colgate, the anxiety and depression he’d experienced for years was intensifying, which led the political science major and Sigma Chi brother to shrink away from social events and spend more time alone.
While he knew he could benefit from talking to a counselor, the prospect of visiting the on-campus counseling center “overwhelmed me,” Semrau recalls. “I worried about who I’d run into, and then the awkwardness of having to admit to a stranger that I was having a hard time.”
He eventually connected with a campus counselor and got the support he needed — “a turning point” in his life, Semrau says. But the fear and stigma that prevented him from seeking help sooner stuck with him.
In 2017, through Colgate’s Thought Into Action Summer Accelerator program and a grant from the Entrepreneurship Fund, Semrau launched BetterMynd, a mental health and teletherapy platform that makes therapy accessible — and confidential — for college students.
The goal behind the platform, says Semrau, is to meet college students where they are, both emotionally and literally. Counselors are available 24/7, and sessions are facilitated virtually, so students don’t need to leave their dorm rooms to get help. The platform also offers mental wellness workshops and tools to help students manage stress, anxiety, and academic pressure before they find themselves in crisis. Another major point of pride for BetterMynd’s founder: the diversity of its network of therapists, with more than 40% of the company’s counselors identifying as people of color. And unlike many on-campus counseling centers, students can choose the counselor who best fits their needs and preferences. “That’s a huge benefit for students who want to work with someone who has a similar background and lived experience as them,” says Semrau.
In the eight years since its founding, BetterMynd has grown to serve more than 50,000 students through partnerships with 150+ schools and 300+ licensed counselors. While the company’s 23 employees mostly work remotely, Semrau serves as CEO from BetterMynd’s headquarters in Buffalo, N.Y., not far from his hometown of Rochester.
A big driver of BetterMynd’s growth, says Semrau, came during the pandemic, when the number of college students seeking counseling online skyrocketed. A 2022 survey from Inside Higher Ed and College Pulse found that 65% of college students felt their mental health had worsened during the pandemic, and 60% of students who said they wanted therapy in the past year didn’t get it. That growing demand overwhelmed already understaffed college counseling centers, leading to long wait times or session time caps.
BetterMynd met the moment, offering schools a way to keep up — and prevent vulnerable students from falling through the cracks.
“COVID-19 revealed a need to provide an alternative to the on-campus counseling center,” says Semrau, who notes that colleges are continuing to steadily seek out BetterMynd’s service in the years since the pandemic started, with more campus leaders recognizing professional mental health support as critical to student retention. “When students can get the help they need, they’re less likely to withdraw or fall behind academically,” he says.
The other key factor in BetterMynd’s success, according to Semrau, is the destigmatization of mental health care among young people and the normalization of therapy — a heartening shift for the former college student once too apprehensive to seek out care for himself.
“Gen Z is having open, honest conversations about mental health both in real life and on social media, and that leads to more people getting the help they need,” says Semrau. “I’m really proud that BetterMynd is part of that.”