Mechanic's son from Kanpur gets into MIT on full scholarship

In a modest house in Kanpur, calorie counting was abandoned for a large box of mithai: 17-year-old Ayush Sharma had just learned he was accepted at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology — with a scholarship worth nearly a crore covering his tuition.

Ayush's father is a mechanic; his mother retired as a constable of the paramilitary Central Reserve Police Force. When he graduates, he will be the first member of his family with a college degree. "I am one of the three people selected for MIT from India, so I am very happy," he said.

A physics topper at his Kendriya Vidyalaya in Kanpur, Ayush got his break two years earlier at a coaching centre run by IIT graduates that works with students who can't afford expensive tuition. "I was introduced to the idea of studying abroad at the Avanti coaching centre. Mentors helped me in understanding the entire process," he said. In 2014, the same centre sent him on a two-week summer course to Yale.

One obstacle was English. "English is one thing that I could not have learnt from anyone. I hardly had any people with whom I could converse, I thus resorted to speaking to myself in English. I gradually started to improve."

"God has blessed us that our child will now study abroad," said his proud mother, Manju Sharma. The teen hopes to someday help reform India's education system — and planned to crowdfund his living expenses on social media before starting college in the US that September.

---

Based on reporting by NDTV, April 2015.