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A disarray of paper kinds, software kinds, transcripts, and suggestion letters mendacity in a scattered heap is what the desk of an bold pupil making use of for college seems like. Bold but anxious, the grasp of all these items of doc friends over them scrutinising each phrase because it holds the capability to fulfil his desires.
“Questions like which college to use to and the place one holds essentially the most likelihood of getting via hang-out us. Whereas there are counsellors who would possibly show you how to, they cost impossibly excessive charges to stroll us via the method,” remembers Dirghayu Kaushik, the founding father of Ambitio.
Practically half a decade in the past, Dirghayu too discovered himself in an identical state of affairs. “I wished to pursue a masters however didn’t know which faculty to select from. The paperwork, the anxiousness of all of it was making me very tense,” he shares with The Higher India.
When he went out on the lookout for assist, all he discovered was an overpriced possibility. This led to the muse of Ambitio — India’s first AI admissions platform, to assist candidates safe admissions to high international universities.
Dirghayu explains intimately how Ambitio makes use of AI to assist college students safe admissions.
Not his first attempt at entrepreneurship
After finishing his commencement from IIT-BHU, Dirghayu Kaushik bought a job in a startup.
He remembers, “I bought employed as a founding member in a startup. For about two years, I spearheaded their total product growth, overseeing the creation of each the tech and product groups from scratch. We began with only a four-member crew, together with the founders, and expanded considerably throughout my tenure.”
Whereas he was working on the startup, he was additionally on the lookout for faculties to additional his training.
“I accomplished my commencement and began to search for overseas universities to use for an MBA. The method was tedious and I realised that there was no platform to assist college students,” he says.
He provides, “There are counsellors who assist college students get into universities however they cost some huge cash which could not be inexpensive to everybody. Moreover, they will help you with explicit faculty admission and never with a wide range of faculties,” he says.
Dirghayu wished to create a platform that did all of it for college students — faculty purposes, private essays, and discovering the appropriate faculty for the scholars.
“I went to my faculty buddies — Vikrant Shivalik and Vaibhav Tyagi — and instructed them about my concept. They have been enthralled and we joined fingers to create the platform,” he says.
The trio developed the platform and launched it in 2023. “We started by assembling a cohort of 25 college students after which assisted them in securing placements at high establishments. Previous to creating any product, we targeted on refining their profiles.”
“We initiated this course of by leveraging notion templates, air tables, and different native instruments to create a small MVP (Minimal Viable Product). By means of these means, we meticulously analysed how we might improve their probabilities of gaining admission to respected establishments,” he provides additional.
Amongst numerous college students who’ve availed of their providers is Prakhar Kamal who bought into Warwick Enterprise Faculty. “I used to be already working with a counsellor earlier than I knew about Ambitio. My expertise with the counsellor was not superb and I misplaced motivation. After I began to make use of Ambitio, I began to regain confidence in myself. I used to be ready to make use of their providers to search out the universities that swimsuit me after which select the appropriate one,” he says.
Since its operation, the platform has helped over 175 college students get into worldwide universities equivalent to Carnegie Mellon College, NYU, Imperial School Dundon, UC Berkeley, and so on.
Utilizing AI to search out the dream faculty
Ambitio started with a core problem we aimed to handle: simplifying the admissions course of for college students utilizing AI.
“To attain this, we developed a platform product designed to assist college students all through their total admissions journey. Our final goal is to determine a complete international AI admissions platform,” he says.
He provides, “No matter a pupil’s background or location, our goal is to supply equal alternatives and entry to the appropriate steering, a privilege usually reserved for the prosperous or these capable of afford costly counsellors. We leverage cutting-edge know-how, together with AI, to attain this aim.”
Explaining how AI comes into play with the method, he says, “We make use of AI in two major areas. Firstly, we utilise it to help college students in figuring out essentially the most appropriate program or college at present accessible available in the market. Whereas there are present filtration instruments enabling college students to filter programs they’re eligible for and consider them, we’ve taken an extra step ahead. We incorporate preferences into the equation.”
In different phrases, the AI strives to grasp and combine the person preferences of every pupil into the suggestions that it offers.
“We accomplish this via our proprietary suggestion engine, which has been educated on over 15 million acceptance and admit knowledge factors. Whereas it’s actually attainable for college students to conduct this analysis themselves by visiting quite a few web sites, studying numerous articles, and compiling the data manually, our platform streamlines this course of considerably,” he shares.
By synthesising and analysing huge quantities of knowledge, the platform can ship personalised suggestions shortly and seamlessly, saving college students invaluable effort and time.
The following step the place AI is available in to assist the scholars is writing their private essays. “As soon as the scholars know what faculty they need, the subsequent step is to put in writing a stellar essay. We educated our mannequin with 5,000 accepted essays from throughout universities.”
He explains, “We start by making certain primary grammar and punctuation are appropriate. Past these fundamentals, we deal with supply and specificity. Supply pertains to how successfully the essay is conveyed as a complete, whereas specificity refers to its relevance to the programme being utilized for and the person applicant’s profile.”
Consider it as a personalised Grammarly instrument tailor-made particularly for faculty purposes!
“The platform is generally free for college students aside from the part the place they want efficient administration of their essays and purposes. This part comes below a small paid subscription. Earlier than this part, every little thing else from discovering the appropriate faculty to making use of for a scholarship comes below the free subscription,” he informs.
The corporate has additionally lately raised Rs 1.5 crore in a pre-seed spherical of funding from First Cheque and angel buyers from the US and India.
As for the long run plans, he says, “We need to entail aggressive development throughout the Indian market. Presently, we’re managing round 200 college students on this consumption, and we goal to scale as much as 2,500 throughout the upcoming monetary yr. Moreover, we’re planning to increase our providers to incorporate undergraduate admissions as nicely. This strategic growth will permit us to cater to a broader vary of scholars and additional set up ourselves as a complete admissions platform.”
(Edited by Padmashree Pande; All photos credit score: Ambitio)
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