A disarray of paper varieties, utility varieties, transcripts, and suggestion letters mendacity in a scattered heap is what the desk of an bold scholar making use of for college seems to be like. Formidable but anxious, the grasp of all these items of doc friends over them scrutinising each phrase because it holds the capability to fulfil his goals.
“Questions like which college to use to and the place one holds essentially the most likelihood of getting by means of hang-out us. Whereas there are counsellors who would possibly provide help to, they cost impossibly excessive charges to stroll us by means of the method,” remembers Dirghayu Kaushik, the founding father of Ambitio.
Almost half a decade in the past, Dirghayu too discovered himself in the same state of affairs. “I needed to pursue a masters however didn’t know which school 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 in search of assist, all he discovered was an overpriced possibility. This led to the inspiration of Ambitio — India’s first AI admissions platform, to assist candidates safe admissions to prime world universities.
Dirghayu explains intimately how Ambitio makes use of AI to assist college students safe admissions.
Not his first strive at entrepreneurship
After finishing his commencement from IIT-BHU, Dirghayu Kaushik received a job in a startup.
He remembers, “I received employed as a founding member in a startup. For about two years, I spearheaded their total product improvement, 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 in search of faculties to additional his schooling.
“I accomplished my commencement and began to search for international 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 can assist you with specific school admission and never with quite a lot of faculties,” he says.
Dirghayu needed to create a platform that did all of it for college kids — school functions, private essays, and discovering the proper school for the scholars.
“I went to my school 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 prime establishments. Previous to growing 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 way of these means, we meticulously analysed how we might improve their probabilities of gaining admission to respected establishments,” he provides additional.
Amongst varied college students who’ve availed of their companies is Prakhar Kamal who received 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 excellent and I misplaced motivation. Once I began to make use of Ambitio, I began to regain confidence in myself. I used to be in a position to make use of their companies to seek out the universities that go well with me after which select the proper one,” he says.
Since its operation, the platform has helped over 175 college students get into worldwide universities resembling Carnegie Mellon College, NYU, Imperial Faculty Dundon, UC Berkeley, and many others.
Utilizing AI to seek out the dream school
Ambitio started with a core problem we aimed to deal with: simplifying the admissions course of for college kids utilizing AI.
“To realize this, we developed a platform product designed to help college students all through their total admissions journey. Our final goal is to ascertain a complete world AI admissions platform,” he says.
He provides, “No matter a scholar’s background or location, our intention is to supply equal alternatives and entry to the proper steering, a privilege usually reserved for the prosperous or these capable of afford costly counsellors. We leverage cutting-edge expertise, 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 main areas. Firstly, we utilise it to help college students in figuring out essentially the most appropriate program or college at present obtainable out there. Whereas there are present filtration instruments enabling college students to filter programs they’re eligible for and examine 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 scholar into the suggestions that it offers.
“We accomplish this by means of our proprietary suggestion engine, which has been skilled on over 15 million acceptance and admit knowledge factors. Whereas it’s definitely attainable for college kids to conduct this analysis themselves by visiting quite a few web sites, studying varied 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 worthwhile 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 school they need, the following step is to write down a stellar essay. We skilled our mannequin with 5,000 accepted essays from throughout universities.”
He explains, “We start by guaranteeing fundamental 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 device tailor-made particularly for school functions!
“The platform is generally free for college kids aside from the part the place they want efficient administration of their essays and functions. This part comes beneath a small paid subscription. Earlier than this part, every part else from discovering the proper school to making use of for a scholarship comes beneath the free subscription,” he informs.
The corporate has additionally not too long ago 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 longer term plans, he says, “We wish to entail aggressive development throughout the Indian market. Presently, we’re managing round 200 college students on this consumption, and we intention to scale as much as 2,500 throughout the upcoming monetary yr. Moreover, we’re planning to develop our companies to incorporate undergraduate admissions as properly. This strategic enlargement 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 footage credit score: Ambitio)