Ratan Guha’s Superpower is Education.
Ratan Guha grew up in a small Indian town, became the first in his family to study at IIT and this year, he’s headed to Wharton with a scholarship. Along the way, Ratan has advised Indian Chief Ministers on education policy, co-founded a social-action volunteer group and helped transition children from low-income backgrounds to online school during COVID.
Needless to say, Ratan understands how life-transforming education can be.
Ratan learnt his work-ethic from his father, who has worked as a train-guard with Indian Railways for over 30 years. His interest in science though, was sparked by his grandfather, who gifted him a book titled ‘101 Science Experiments’ when he was just eight years old. Ratan discovered his love for physics and went on to excel at Math and Science in school. He first heard about IIT at the same age and started preparing for the grueling entrance test.
While he was at IIT-Bombay though, Ratan had a few experiences that made him realise that his true passion lay in using technology as leverage to empower people and make lives better. The first was a semester as an exchange student at the National University of Singapore. Ratan took courses in Sociology and Economics and was exposed to new methods of teaching that encouraged independent thinking and research.
The second formative experience was when he won a seat on Jagriti Yaatra, a 15-Day pan-India train odyssey for social entrepreneurs, meeting leaders such as Teach-For-India founder, Shaheen Mistry and more. Ratan witnessed the value of human enterprise and its power in transforming communities. Inspired, upon his return, Ratan co-founded Abhyuday, the Students’ Social Activities Body at IIT Bombay; now a national level social festival with over 50 events held annually.
Ratan was hired by ITC via campus placement but stayed for less than a year before applying for the Young India Fellowship. As part of the course, he was placed in a school in Madhya Pradesh for an internship and got his first experience teaching children.
After the Fellowship, Ratan worked for two non-profit consulting firms partnering with the Government of India to work on education reform. Ratan collaborated with 10 state governments and advised the Chief Minister’s Office of Haryana to devise campaigns that mobilised teachers, drove student attendance and improved learning outcomes.
During COVID, Ratan helped introduce digital education to ensure uninterrupted learning for students in Madhya Pradesh. Coming from a similar background himself, Ratan understood the issues faced by both parents and children in low-income families.
Ratan realised he did not want to limit himself to just public sector or non-profit work and that he wanted to solve for more advanced problems than ones like driving primary school attendance. His experience studying in Singapore had convinced him of the value of a foreign MBA would have in expanding his horizons, giving him a global perspective on ed-tech and helping him build an international network that would be invaluable as an entrepreneur.
Though he spoke with other consultants Ratan says he decided to work with Admissions Gateway because of their proven track record and recommendations from his batch-mates and colleagues. He first approached them in 2019 but decided to take their advice and get another year of work experience before starting his application process.
Ratan worked with Admissions Gateway in 2020 and applied to Harvard, Wharton, Stanford, Booth and Kellogg. He says they set a high bar of excellence and kept pushing him and working with him over countless iterations to improve his applications. He says they provided tactical insights that eased his research load and allayed his fears during applications.
While Ratan was offered admits at Wharton and Kellogg, he chose the former because Wharton offers the opportunity of a dual-degree, with an MBA plus a Masters in Ed-Tech Ventures; a course tailor-made for him. Wharton also offered $35K in scholarship, which helped his final decision.
Ratan’s advice to MBA aspirants is that applications are a long, taxing process and one should prepare mentally to spend a lot of time, effort and mental & emotional bandwidth on it.
“It’s like working two jobs.”
Ratan confesses that as an engineer he struggled with writing essays and recommends other engineers practice writing essays to beef up their storytelling skills before applying.
Finally, Ratan stresses the importance of having direction of purpose before applying for or even considering an MBA.
“Have clarity on your short term and long-term goals. Introspect and don’t rush.”
Ratan deferred his admission but later in 2022, he’s finally headed to Wharton; a very long journey for a small-town boy from Madhya Pradesh.