A disarray of paper varieties, utility varieties, transcripts, and suggestion letters mendacity in a scattered heap is what the desk of an formidable 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 probability of getting by way of hang-out us. Whereas there are counsellors who would possibly enable you, they cost impossibly excessive charges to stroll us by way of the method,” remembers Dirghayu Kaushik, the founding father of Ambitio.

Practically half a decade in the past, Dirghayu too discovered himself in the same scenario. “I needed to pursue a masters however didn’t know which school to select from. The paperwork, the nervousness 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 choice. This led to the inspiration of Ambitio — India’s first AI admissions platform, to assist candidates safe admissions to high 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 obtained a job in a startup.

He remembers, “I obtained employed as a founding member in a startup. For about two years, I spearheaded their complete 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 training.

“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 explicit 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 students — school functions, private essays, and discovering the fitting school for the scholars.

“I went to my school buddies — Vikrant Shivalik and Vaibhav Tyagi — and advised them about my thought. They have been enthralled and we joined palms 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 growing any product, we centered 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 these means, we meticulously analysed how we might improve their possibilities of gaining admission to respected establishments,” he provides additional. 

Amongst numerous college students who’ve availed of their providers is Prakhar Kamal who obtained 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 providers to search out the universities that go well with me after which select the fitting one,” he says.

Since its operation, the platform has helped over 175 college students get into worldwide universities reminiscent of Carnegie Mellon College, NYU, Imperial Faculty Dundon, UC Berkeley, and so on.

Utilizing AI to search out the dream school

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 complete admissions journey. Our final goal is to determine a complete world AI admissions platform,” he says.

He provides, “No matter a pupil’s background or location, our purpose is to offer equal alternatives and entry to the fitting steering, a privilege usually reserved for the prosperous or these in a position to afford costly counsellors. We leverage cutting-edge expertise, together with AI, to realize 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 presently obtainable out there. Whereas there are current filtration instruments enabling college students to filter programs they’re eligible for and look at them, we’ve taken a further 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 supplies.

“We accomplish this by way of our proprietary suggestion engine, which has been educated on over 15 million acceptance and admit information factors. Whereas it’s definitely doable for college students to conduct this analysis themselves by visiting quite a few web sites, studying numerous articles, and compiling the knowledge 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 priceless effort and time.

The subsequent 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 subsequent step is to jot down a stellar essay. We educated 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 concentrate on 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 functions!

“The platform is usually free for college students apart from the section the place they want efficient administration of their essays and functions. This section comes below a small paid subscription. Earlier than this section, the whole lot else from discovering the fitting school to making use of for a scholarship comes below 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 long run plans, he says, “We need to entail aggressive development inside the Indian market. Presently, we’re managing round 200 college students on this consumption, and we purpose to scale as much as 2,500 inside the upcoming monetary 12 months. Moreover, we’re planning to broaden our providers 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)