Two Pune students develop free guidance platform for foreign university aspirants

Prospective students can check with those studying abroad for all details including scholarships’

Skills alone may not get deserving students an opportunity in a reputed foreign university of their choice and professional guidance comes at a price which not all can afford.

Sensing this need, two Pune students, Yash Gulati (24) and Devika Ghosal (21), who are studying in the United Kingdom, have joined hands to set up a unique, free platform to provide an opportunity for aspiring students to consult on their CVs, providing statements of purpose and application forms from students already studying at elite universities.

The duo has designed an integrated online platform

www.inforens.com that connects prospective students independently with students studying abroad. According to founders, this ensures that potential students receive only genuine and customised advice. Inforens has team members from more than 20 top ranked universities including the University of Oxford and the London School of Economics and Political Science and from 18 countries.

“A lot of money is being charged by private educational consultants whom only rich people reach up to. Talented students who have skills but are not rich don’t even dream to go abroad. We want to change this,” said Mr. Gulati, a student of the Queen Mary University in London.

He said most consultants are just professionals who have never actually gone through the process and offer only generic advice.

“At Inforens we also aim to secure scholarships for talented students as education abroad is expensive and a lot of students miss out on scholarship opportunities despite having great scores as they are not aware of the right procedures,” said Ms. Ghosal, a student of the University of Warwick.

Their ultimate aim is to create a platform that connects international applicants to a current student studying the degree and in the university that the applicant wants to apply to. “Thus it’s mutually beneficial as the applicant pays much lesser than large consultants charge, receives customised advice, and helps a current student cover his or her part-time expenses,” she said.