On the day before Mahindra United World College’s winter break, the air is thick with nerves, relief, excitement. For the freshers, this is the first time they return home since arriving at the boarding school. The graduating class, meanwhile, is wrapping up a critical phase of their school lives—applying to universities.
Raghav Malik, 16, straddles both worlds.
Younger Malik too wants to go abroad for higher education; studying medicine in UK is a possibility, he says
Watching his harried seniors, he gets a peek into what his older brother, Rohan Malik, went through on the same campus last year.
Raghav didn’t see his brother’s angst as he spent hours surfing the Internet, pouring over brochures, discussing his interests with college counsellors Michael McGahan and Claire Timperley, filling out applications, writing essays, requesting recommendations, sending applications and waiting to hear.
He did not witness the jubilation either when older Malik announced to his friends that he had made it to the prestigious Princeton University. But, as the younger brother sees a bunch of students break into spontaneous applause as one of their classmates proclaims that she’s gotten into Brown University, he gets a sense of the adrenalin rush that greets every success on campus—including his brother’s.
In September, the older Malik began his freshman year at Princeton, joining five others who form the record number of Indian nationals at the member of the Ivy League. Mint has been tracking their stories as part of The Indian Education Dream series, which intends to follow the multi-year journey.
In many ways, this school represented Malik’s first taste of alternative education. He arrived for the last two years of high school, knowing he wanted to study abroad in an environment that stressed freedom, diversity, possibility.
It is a sentiment that defines this chain of prep schools across the world, with former South African president Nelson Mandela serving as honorary president and Queen Noor of Jordan as president.
The India branch—founded by Harish and Keshub Mahindra; Keshub Mahindra is chairman of the Mahindra Group—draws students from 60 countries. Almost all of the Indians, about 35% of the class, aspire to study overseas once they complete the International Baccalaureate (IB) programme at the college. The globally recognized qualification issued by the Geneva-based International Baccalaureate Organization is increasingly considered a ticket overseas. With only 37 Indian schools offering the IB diploma, the competition to get in is fierce.
At this campus 40km from Pune, five of the graduating class of 110 students already have received admissions through ‘early decision’—an offer made by the university before the regular application deadline. The rest of the students face looming deadlines, mostly in January, and will know the outcome by April.