Mumbai, 23rd November 2022: Sitare Foundation, a not-for-profit organization aiming to “Transform fifty thousand lives through education by 2050,” announced its first batch of five talented underprivileged senior secondary school students from Rajasthan, who have secured admissions to renowned universities in the United States of America, in undergraduate Computer Sciences programs.

To help realize this ambitious vision, Sitare partnered with Athena Education, a leading education consulting firm based in Gurugram, Haryana. Athena took up Sitare students on a pro-bono basis.

“Athena has helped our students at each step of the way, building on their strengths by providing them with guidance for standardized tests, formulating projects, college selection and applications. Athena has been a great partner to Sitare and we couldn't have achieved this dream without Athena's help.” says Mrs. Shilpa Singhal, founder of Sitare Foundation.

Rahul Subramaniam remarks, “We are not just college counselors, we want to leave a mark on society. After working with five Sitare students, we have become confident that these students will be the flag bearers of transformation. Post their education they will come back to India and bring newer opportunities to their families and the less privileged of the country.”

Milan Ramdhari, son of an auto-rickshaw driver, has joined Virginia Tech., Tanisha Nagori, who once escaped the clutches of child marriage, has started her undergraduate degree at Case Western Reserve University, Kusum Choudhary and Mahendra Kumar accepted University of Maryland and Nisha Choudhary is at University of Minnesota. All these students secured multiple admissions from various prestigious US universities before they decided to join their respective universities. They are all first-generation college students who will alter the future of their family and community.

About Sitare Foundation

Sitare Foundation is a national level educational NGO based out of India. Founded in 2016 by philanthropist couple Shilpa and Amit Singhal, the Foundation believes in the power of education as a weapon that can change the world. Adopting a scientific, step-by-step approach to impact lives and societies through education Sitare Foundation has over four hundred children in the program and aims to educate 50,000 students by 2050. The Foundation has been assisting underprivileged children to enter middle school (through an aptitude test and an interview for admission in Class VI) and providing them with quality education for seven years. Five students from the foundation’s first batch have secured multiple admissions to prestigious US universities this year, In this year’s entrance exams announced a few days back, The Foundation has selected about 100 students out of the 73,000 applications received during the entrance exams conducted in Jaipur, Jodhpur, Bhopal and Indore.

About Athena Education

Founded nine years ago by two Princeton graduates, Rahul Subramaniyam and Poshak Agarwal, Athena Education is the Indian leader in coaching for admission in top universities in the United States and across the world. Athena has students in fifteen countries who are currently pursuing their undergraduate degrees. The organization, along with their knowledgeable team of experts, works closely with students to guide them with complicated application processes of the universities, prepares them for achieving top scores in the standardized tests and most importantly familiarizing them with life skills that would be needed to succeed when these students go abroad. Their warm and cordial team relieves stress and anxiety for the students and their families who go through the grinding college application process and makes their journey a smooth one.