ATTEND THE IVY INSIDER
Vedant Khanna, a STEM student who secured admission into Stanford this year, reveals how attending the Ivy Insider event helped him plan his academic future, and why he recommends it to all students who are preparing to study in the United States
What led you to choose STEM?
I like to find ways to apply logic to the real world and beyond, and it’s amazing how emergent macrosystems inevitably develop elegant patterns as they grow. The benefit of studying the British curriculum is that you can focus on the subjects that you like, so I’ve enjoyed exploring these fields through discussions with my teachers. However, I can’t discount the utility of YouTube as a teacher; the platform is one of the best ways to learn something new in any subject you can imagine, for free!
You’ve attended the Ivy Insider regularly. Your views?
The Ivy Insider hosts a panel of successful students from the latest application cycle, and allows the audience to learn from their experiences and advice. It’s not everyday that you get to talk to a bunch of students who’ll be attending Top 10 universities, so I’d highly recommend attending. Whether you are wondering what American university life is like or applying this autumn, the Ivy Insider will have useful info.
The Ivy Insider event takes advantage of the experiences of students who’ve spent the last year painstakingly compiling data from a thousand different sources for a myriad of facts, questions and quandaries that they came up with when they were applying. Therefore they represent a collective wealth of information that anybody attending the event can tap into to simplify the process for themselves.
How has the Ivy Insider helped you?
Hearing the panelists talk was inspiring but also made the somewhat mythical names of MIT, Stanford and Harvard within the realm of possibility. The panelists were just students after all, and hearing their journey cleared some of the fog obscuring my own path.
Some important takeaways from your time at the Ivy Insider event?
1. You can never start too early.
2. There’s no set template for a good applicant, the best way to be unique is to be yourself.
3. You don’t need to know clearly what you want to do in the future to apply to American universities; you can always change your mind.
4. Carving out your own niche is one of the best ways to stand out.
5. Writing essays (SOPs) takes a long time!
Three pieces of advice for students planning studies in the US?
1. Find something you’re interested in and dedicate time to it.
2. Don’t do things purely because it’s what “universities like to see.” This will make your life miserable and won’t add much value to your application, as you won’t be able to progress far enough in these activities without enjoying them.
3. If you ever see a problem around you, always ask yourself “Is there anything I can do to alleviate it?” Even if the solution is out of your scope, you can always pitch it to your parents, friends, or teachers, and you never know if it could amount to something with their support.