My hand was shaking. I had called my entire extended family, consisting of my uncles, aunts, and even my grandmother, to gather around the screen. I had already seen one acceptance and already absorbed one rejection. Now there was only one result left, and it was the one that mattered most.
I logged in and pressed “View Status.” A blue screen filled my monitor.Shreevar, you are an Illini….
I jumped, I just hugged my father, hugged my mother, and everyone was so happy. We were doing so much noise. Just raw emotions took over. I had no idea what I was doing.
It was, without question, one of the best moments of my life.
From Jharkhand to Gujarat to Illinois
I am Haryanvi by roots, as I was born into a family whose culture and identity trace back to Haryana. But life took us elsewhere.
I don’t exactly come from Gujarat. I have been doing quite a lot of shifting.
I spent most of my early years in a small city in Jharkhand, studying at St. Xavier’s School from pre-school all the way through Grade 9. Then my whole family shifted to Ahmedabad, and now I am currently finishing 12th grade at Anand Niketan School, one of Ahmedabad’s well-regarded schools under the ICSE board curriculum.
My curriculum is the ICSE board curriculum. Most of the applicants have either IB, IGCSE or the majority are in CBSE. But I chose to continue with ICSE because that was what I had been doing from Grade 1.
I scored 94% in my 10th board exams, with a perfect 100 in Computer Applications, which was a score I listed in my Common App honors section. In 11th grade, I dropped slightly to 86%, and my predicted 12th-grade marks came are at 92.4%. Steady, consistent, strong.
But academics were never the whole story…..
Computers, Code, and a Pandemic
Computers have always been part of my life, even before I knew what to do with them.
Computers, they have always been an integral part of my life. Even in seventh or eighth grade, when COVID hit, I used to spend a lot of time on my computer, just doing random stuff. There’s always been a small connection
That connection found a name when I discovered White Hat Junior, which was a company in India, offering coding courses during the pandemic. I decided that I was going to give it a try because this was something that I was interested in, and it seemed interesting to me. I did that, completed that course, and somewhere from that, my interest in computers, you know, stems from that. I went on to study Computer Science and Computer Applications for five years in school. When you study something for that long, it stops being a subject and starts being a language you think in.
Later, I applied to Stanford University’s Code in Place, which is a free, selective online course teaching the basics of Python. My favourite instructor was Professor Chris Piech. His seminars, his short videos on the language of Python, were absolutely crazy. I didn’t expect a person to speak of computer science in such a magical way. That was really nice. It shifted something in me, the idea that programming was not just syntax but an art form, a way of translating human thought into a language machines can understand.
I didn’t expect a person to speak of computer science in such a magical way.
Alongside Stanford, I also completed the IIT Madras Data Science and AI course. The IIT Madras Data Science and AI course introduced me to the data science algorithms and the field of data science. It was through this program that I confirmed something I had suspected earlier: inside computer science, I wanted to do machine learning.
The Physics Teacher, the Terrace, and the Brand New Obsession
I want to be upfront about something: astronomy is not a lifelong passion of mine. It is new. This isn’t a long-explored interest of mine. It’s pretty recent. I’d say for the past year only, I have been interested in physics, astronomy modules, astrophysics, and the vast space.It started in my school with my physics teacher. Whatever the topic is, she explained it so well that right now, after maths, physics is my second most favourite subject. She made the universe feel like something you could reach out and touch, not just equations on a board, but a living system full of questions that have never been answered.
I have developed a habit. Whenever life gets kind of rough, and if I’m stressed or if I’m just getting bored in my room, I might go to the terrace at times. Just seeing the sky, the planets, the universe around me, that’s really interesting and relaxing. There is something quietly powerful about standing under the open sky when everything else feels loud.
I wanted to go deeper. When IIT Madras offered its Fundamentals of Aerospace course, I enrolled. Aerospace and astronomy are not identical, but similar in a way. After studying the modules of aerospace and the basics, I knew that this was something that I was willing to study, and I could possibly excel after combining data science or computer science with astronomy. This is a booming field.
I’m hoping that in the future, the research centers and the massive amounts of data that space gives us, I’ll get to be a part of that journey.
Researching the Right Way: A Lesson from My Mother
When I told my parents that I wanted to study Astronomy, my mother had reasonable questions. Astronomy was very new for me. My mom told me: It’s fine that you’re interested in it. Why don’t you go ahead and see what they exactly teach in astronomy?”
So I went to the UIUC website and opened the Astronomy + Data Science major page, not the summary, the actual course requirements. However fancy the major name might sound, you should know what you are going there to study. You should know what you are applying for. I scrolled through modules like ASTR 101 and ASTR 402, read through astrophysics electives, and observational methods. And then I found what confirmed my decision:There’s an astronomy senior thesis in the fourth year, which is my final year, and that was so interesting, just reading through it, it gave me chills. Like, this is what I can possibly achieve there. So, somewhere, there, I knew that Astronomy + Data Science was the right fit for me.
The SAT, Three Times
My SAT journey is something I am weirdly proud of.
First attempt in 11th grade: 1450. My English was 740, but my Math was 710. At that time, I didn’t know how to really navigate the SAT Math. Second attempt, later in 11th grade: 1490, but this time a perfect 800 on Math. That did two things for me. It boosted my confidence, and you know the method of super scoring, I had a 740 in English in my first attempt and an 800 in math in my second attempt. So when you combine that, you get a 1540 super score. Almost every US university considers super scores, so I had a solid 1540 on record.
But UIUC specifically does not consider super-scoring. So I gave it once more in October when I was in 12th grade, and I got a 1510 flat out, no super scoring. I submitted both: 1510 clean, 1540 super-scored. For English proficiency, I scored 155/160 on the Duolingo English Test and 8.5 on IELTS.
The Family in the Room
My father is someone who has walked this path before me. He studied abroad himself, at Bond University in Australia, so when I said I wanted to go to the US for university, he did not flinch.
He was not unfamiliar to the study abroad culture and because he had a great time there, he knows the exposure that we can get after we go abroad. He was very much open to this.
My mother, too, had always wanted this for me. Her guidance throughout the process was indispensable. from pushing me to read the actual course catalogue, to keeping the family grounded through every result.
Alongside UIUC, I also received offers from Purdue University and the University of Maryland, College Park, both for Computer Science. But UIUC was always the one. The blue screen. The poppers. The family gathered around.
A Note to Future Applicants
If you are reading this as a student somewhere in India. Maybe in the middle of board exam prep, maybe staring at a Common App tab you have not opened yet - here is what I genuinely wish someone had told me.
First: passion is not something you perform. Admissions readers have seen thousands of applications from students who claim to love computer science or research. What they have not seen is your specific story. That is yours. No one else has it. Your particular combination of a lockdown coding course, a physics teacher who made the universe feel reachable, and a habit of going up to the terrace when life gets loud - it’s all personal and unique for you, and being authentic and real about your experiences will get you in.
Do not be afraid if your interest is new. What matters is that you do the work to understand it, and that you are honest about where you are.
Third: your board does not define your ceiling. I was on ICSE while most peers were on CBSE or IB. What I had was consistency and the willingness to chase every opportunity I could find, be it Stanford’s Code in Place, IIT Madras’s Data Science and AI course, or the Fundamentals of Aerospace program. Being opportunistic always gets you ahead.
Fourth: take the SAT seriously, but do not let it consume you. I sat it three times. Each attempt taught me something new about the exam and about myself. Keep working on yourself, improving yourself, hoping for the best, but while being prepared for the worst.
And finally: involve your family. My mother told me to read the actual course catalogue, and she was right about it. Let them be part of the journey - because they do care.
There will be rejections. Georgia Tech said no to me in a room full of family who had gathered to celebrate. That stung. But the next window you open might be blue. It might have your name on it. It might say something that makes your hand shake and your heart forget how to be quiet.
Keep going until you find that screen.
