Student profile

Accepted into University of Pittsburgh

GPA: 3.9

ACT: 35

Extracurricular activities: Model UN: investment bank, president of nonprofit on financial literacy



Describe a challenge that you think you will face in college and how you anticipate handling the challenge. (No word count; suggested between 200-300)


Going to college means that I will leave the close-knit Indian Hindu community in which I was raised. Family and close relatives won’t be inviting me to Diwali or regularly working stories of their past into our conversations, because I will be far from home. From my community, I learned about our rituals, festivals, and the values that we stand by. As a child, my culture surrounded me, and thus far, I have never had to seek it out.  

It will be a challenge to keep in touch with my culture because my family and friends have been the instigators, but it won’t be impossible. Pittsburgh has a strong Indian community, which gives me the ability to connect with my culture away from my home. I can always call my mom and ask her how to cook traditional dishes or come home on important Indian holidays to sit in on the pujas. Beyond actively connecting with my past, I am excited about the opportunity to discover my culture in an entirely new way; I hope to join groups such as the South Asian Student Association and meet other Indian-American students. 

 

Schools don’t teach you about Indian dishes, festivals or Hindu rituals. You learn those through your parents and relatives, not through textbooks. As I grow up, I won’t have my family with me every step of the way, educating me about my culture. Keeping in touch with this aspect of my life, however, is very important. These experiences instilled the values I believe in and guides me on how I live my life. Tackling this problem while in college will help me remain connected with my religion and heritage all throughout my life.  



Describe a non-academic accomplishment that sets you apart from your peers. (250 words)

Living in Silicon Valley does not mean that my family is affluent. I have two siblings and family in India that my parents have to support. I know that I need a job in college to help pay for my tuition. I wanted to gain experience during high school in balancing the heavy workload as I know that college will be no different. Thus, I took the initiative to get my first job and within one month of working at Jamba Juice, I was promoted to manager. 


As a manager, I am in charge of the performance of the store and my hour range from 20 to 30 per week. At a popular destination such as Jamba Juice, even if I feel ill or have lot of homework, I still come to the store ready to do my job to the best of my abilities because of my commitment. In addition, depending on how busy the store is, I stay after my shift in order to ensure that the store meets our high standards. 


Being involved in this activity in addition to maintaining my grades in school creates a tough schedule, but I have proven to myself that this is something I can handle. I have accomplished being a manager of a store at the age of 17 while managing hospice volunteering,  conducting  research, and going to school full time. I am prepared to handle the difficulties of college and am eager to enter the next stage of my education. 



Activities


Medical

Heartland Hospice, Hospice Volunteer

As a Hospice Volunteer, I make weekly visits to my patients. In these visits, I comfort and care for them by talking to them, feeding them their dinner and lunch, or sitting by their beside and holding their hand. I also talk to nurses to learn more about their treatment and care. At the end of each session, I make patient evaluations summarizing our visit.


Heartland Hospice, Bereavement Volunteer

My job as a bereavement volunteer is to make calls to those who have lost their loved one. I ask about how they are feeling and see if there is anything I can do for them. If they want to talk about how they are handling their loss, I listen and offer any sort of comfort that I can. 


   

Sunnyview Nursing Home, Team Leader, Founder of the Storytelling Project 

While listening to my grandfather tell stories about his life, I became inspired to write stories of nursing home patients. As he was telling his stories, he looked so happy that someone was willing to listen to the events of his life. Telling these stories was a way of making sure that he won’t be forgotten.  After seeing how rewarding this was for my grandfather,  I started the Storytelling Project. I go to the residents of the Sunnyview Nursing home and ask questions about their childhood, adulthood, or opinions and record them to publish into a book. I also care for them by continuing to visit them after I record their story. 


Community 

Jamba Juice, Shift/Lead Manager

As a manager of Jamba Juice, I help manage the store and its employees and assist my general manager. Some of my tasks include customer service, food preparation, opening and closing the store, ordering products, and making sure the store meets the sales goal requirement. I help devise strategies to increase our profits and deal with any problems that arise within the store.  


Teen Interfaith Council, Council Leader

The Teen Interfaith Council is a small group of high school students from various backgrounds and religions. Our goal is to foster a mutual understanding of different perspectives. We advocate for religious equality and social justice by supporting the increase of the minimum wage and holding memorial services to acknowledge the homeless who have passed away. As a council leader, I assist in leading meetings and organizing community service events. 


Basis Independent Silicon Valley UNICEF, Co-Founder

Inspired by UNICEF’s goal of protecting the world's most vulnerable children, a friend and I decided to co-found a UNICEF club at our new school. While efforts to establish the club began in 2015, because my school is new it took me about a year to get the club approved. As event coordinator, I coordinate with the school, club members, and other schools to hold fundraising events that comply with my school’s bylaws. I also help run the day-to-day events of the club and make sure the meetings go as planned. 


Research 

University of California San Francisco, Research Assistant 

As a research assistant of the Schjerven Lab, our overall research interest is in transcriptional regulation in the immune system.  I perform research focused on the role of the zinc finger (ZnF) transcription factor Ikaros. In addition, I assist my principal investigator and the graduate students in the lab with their own projects. I also am in charge of doing the inventory of the lab and making sure the lab is kept in order. 



How have you made an impact at your high school? Choose one example and tell us about it.

Inspired by UNICEF’s goal of protecting the world's most vulnerable children, a friend and I decided to co-found a UNICEF club at our new school. Little did I know that founding a club at a brand new school would pose so many challenges. Starting this club, however, helped pave the way for other students at my school to start their own clubs. 


Because my school is fairly new, founding UNICEF was uncharted territory. I was forced to come up with solutions and develop my skills talking with school administration. It took almost one year of lost proposals, rescheduled meetings, and negotiations to determine whether UNICEF met the school’s bylaws. As a result of the meetings I planned and the initiative I took, by junior year, UNICEF became an established club at my school.

Leading the UNICEF Club also required a lot of creativity. As my school is a for profit organization, we weren’t able to fundraise on campus. Therefore, I had to come up with events that followed our school guidelines. I proposed the idea of collaborating with other UNICEF clubs in the area. Now, we are in the process of arranging speakers, booths, and merchandise in an effort to raise awareness and money for UNICEF. Within our own school, I brought up the idea of doing an off-campus fundraiser: the iconic UNICEF trick-or-treat fundraiser. 


By starting UNICEF, I made an impact on my school. I have shown other students how to start clubs and educated them on how to find ways to achieve their club’s goals despite our school’s regulations. UNICEF has shown students how to develop connections with other schools and that it is possible to start a club that you are deeply passionate about. In addition, because of UNICEF, the school administration is more open to working with students to create clubs and other events. As a senior, I am proud that we were not only able to establish a UNICEF club, but also clear the unknowns for all students who wish to create a club. 



Please write a one page (600 words) essay on "Why do you want to be a doctor?

Every single second, billions of little events are happening within the body. Without thinking about it, the small action of picking up a cup requires an extraordinary number of neurons firing signals simultaneously. When a cell divides or a white blood cell attacks an invading virus, the process happens without our notice.

My intrigue with the human body started with just wanting to understand my textbooks. My AP Biology textbooks have thousands of pages and over the years the pages came to life. Body systems became clear, cellular respiration became tangible, and Mendelian genetics started to make sense. Now, it’s not only about understanding the textbook, which is full of information we have already discovered. There are so many things that we don’t yet understand, which  motivates me to learn outside of the classroom. I joined a lab at UCSF, where for the first time I cannot find answers in textbooks. I am working on a project investigating the transcriptional factor Ikaros. Where does Ikaros play a role in B cell development? Can we harness it to treat cancer and autoimmune diseases? Questions like this continue to drive my desire to learn.

In the future, I want to combine my fascination with the human body with my desire to help others, which led me to become interested in becoming a doctor. This hope has been present since I was little. To gain more real-world experience in this field, I began volunteering in hospice centers. 


It’s through this experience that I learned about the emotional strength that being a doctor will require. There are many situations where you cannot completely stop pain, especially in hospice. Seeing people suffering and not being able to take it away is difficult for me, but as an aspiring doctor I learned to accept this reality. While there are instances where I cannot take away the pain, there are some where I am able to make a patient smile. It’s these instances, combined with my fascination with the human body, that motivate me to become a doctor.  


When I am in the lab at UCSF, I am reminded of the patients I have spent so many days with at hospice. They have illnesses that mean they will soon die, and most have run out of treatment options. It is easy to feel like pipetting and growing cells is an isolated task, but they are not. With every mice dissection or western blot I complete, I am reminded of how this is taking a step towards bettering the lives of others. This side of medicine, for me, is inextricable from the patient-facing side. 


My experiences in research at UCSF and as a hospice volunteer are two sides of the same coin. They have helped me realize that I am suited to become a doctor because of my love for both the scientific and emotional aspects of medicine. As a physician, I hope to comfort my patients and alleviate suffering whenever possible. I also hope to continue improving treatments, both in the hospital and the lab. Throughout college, medical school, and beyond, I am excited to continue building on my experiences and gain new perspectives. I know that I want to become a doctor and I am eager to continue that journey. 



University of Pittsburgh receives about 30,000 applicants a year. What makes you unique?

As a current high school student, I thought I had experienced real pain when a friendship ended or when my parents were disappointed in me. I was always able to solve problems that came my way. My perspective changed, however, when I began volunteering at Heartland Hospice.


Going into hospice, I was focused on the logistical tasks I would be assigned. I expected to take patients to the bathroom, feed them, or just talk to them. After actually being there, however, what I have learned has been much more emotional. I hear patients scream not because they are mad, but because they feel so much pain. At first, I was scared. I had never heard people scream and cry from physical and emotional pain. I began to understand, as much as anyone can from an observer’s viewpoint, the complexities and astounding impacts of pain. 

I hold this ongoing experience close to my heart. I chose to be a volunteer because, in addition to serving others, I wanted to gain insight on the people skills that doctors require. Although I don’t fully know what it takes to be a doctor, volunteering gave me insight into the joys and hardships that doctors have to face. But even more, I have started to understand what it is like to be near death. Unfortunately I cannot remove the pain associated with death or stop my patients from dying. But I learned that there are little things that I can do. I can read the Bible to them, ask about their childhood, watch a TV show with them, or even just sit in silence and hold their hand. My experience enables me to start college with a perspective and understanding that others would develop later. That is what makes me unique.



I love music. Whether it be my mom singing, my dad playing music, or me singing with my siblings, music has been a big part of my life since I was little.

Since I was six, I have been training in Indian Classical Music, a form of music that originated in South India. Indian classical music first prompted my love for music. As I grew older, I began to sing a multitude of genres. I sing everywhere I go - in the shower, in the car, while I do my homework, and so on. While I sing, I express my creativity by taking a song and making my own rendition of it. Sometimes, it can be a simple. Other times, it could be a complex tune and involve elements from Indian classical music. Other times, to challenge myself, I compose my own songs. 


Many people learn through books, but I learn through music. I believe that music gives a glimpse into cultures. Indian Classical music gives me an insight into the Gods we worship. Through music, I see the story of a culture. I see how Indian music, especially in movies, changed from classical music to pop music. While learning about different styles of music, I come across similarities. Western Music has the traditional Do Re Mi scale, but what I find incredibly interesting is that Indian Classical Music, has the exact scale, or raga, named Shankara Bharanam. I see how music connects the world and influences cultures. The fact that a melody and words accomplish this completely fascinates me. 


No matter how I feel, music always brings me back to a place of happiness. So what do I most enjoy doing? I most enjoy exploring my capabilities and traveling the world through music.


The passion for human biology started with just wanting to understand my aunts death by cancer. By interest blossomed the more textbooks I read and classes I attended merely because of the unanswered mysteries of the human body. I joined a lab at UCSF, where, for the first time, I cannot find answers in textbooks. Now, I am working on a project investigating the transcriptional factor Ikaros. Can we harness it to treat cancer and autoimmune diseases? These questions continue to drive my desire to learn. 


In the future, I want to combine my fascination with the human body with my desire to help others. Therefore, I have decided to pursue the path of becoming a doctor. To gain more real-world experience in this field, I began volunteering in hospice centers. 


It was this experience that enabled me to learn about the emotional strength that doctors require. There are many situations where you cannot completely stop the pain. Seeing people suffering and not being able to take it away is difficult for me, but it is something I learned to accept as an aspiring doctor. While there are instances where I cannot take away the pain, there are some where I am able to make a patient smile. Its these instances, combined with my fascination with the human body, that motivate me to become a doctor.


 When I am in the lab at UCSF, I am reminded of the patients I have spent so many days with at hospice. They have illnesses that mean they will soon die, and most have run out of treatment options. With every mice dissection or Western I complete, I am reminded of how this is taking a step towards bettering the lives of others. This side of medicine, for me, is inextricable from the patient-facing side. 


My experiences in research at UCSF and as a hospice volunteer are two sides of the same coin. They helped me realize that I am suited to become a doctor because of my love for both the scientific and emotional aspects of medicine. As a physician, I hope to comfort my patients and alleviate suffering whenever possible. I also hope to continue improving treatments, both in the hospital and the lab by constantly learning about new advances or treatments. Throughout college, medical school, and beyond, I am excited to continue building on my experiences and gain new perspectives. I know that I want to become a doctor and I am eager to start that journey at the Rice/ Baylor program.