A Class 12 student from Uttar Pradesh's Aligarh district has secured a place at the prestigious Stanford University in the US with 100 per cent scholarship.
Manu Chauhan, who belongs to Akrabad village was studying at VidyaGyan, a residential co-ed school that offers free world-class education to rural, underprivileged meritorious students from families with an annual income of less than Rs 1 lakh.
He has been selected at Stanford University to study International Relations and Economics on 100 per cent scholarship. He will be joining in August end.
Coming from a poor background where his father toiled as a salesman, struggling to fulfil the basic necessities of the family, Manu is the only child.
Manu was able to secure admission to VidyaGyan, where only 250 students are selected out of the approximate 250,000 applicants every year.
At VidyaGyan, run by the Shiv Nadar Foundation, Manu excelled and his teachers motivated him to become more confident and guided him step-by-step to achieve bigger milestones.
As a result, he secured 95.4 per cent in Class 10, won outstanding performance award in Assessment of Scholastic Skills through Educational Testing twice, became the best speaker in intra-class debate competitions and won gold medal in Open State Level Table-Tennis championship in 2018.
"I will give the entire credit for my journey to my teachers at VidyaGyan who taught me, encouraged me and counselled me at every stage," he added.
Manu aspires to take up a job at the UN as after completing his study.
Manu aims to work in the field of international relations and help drive the development agenda.
His long-term dream is to contribute towards the education of underprivileged children in India so that he is able to extend the gift of education to other deserving students and help improve their lives.