My student Ritesh's journey to Stanford was no less than a roller coaster ride.
Right out of undergrad, where he was a University topper in a tier-1 engineering college, he took the route less travelled and said no to all the job offers that came his way and decided to found his own startup.
Fast-forward to a year and a half he realized he had not hit PMF yet and scaling his startup would not be possible. He accepted the failure and shut down the business.
When he started exploring the job market with a failed startup experience on his CV, all the top-tier firms politely rejected his candidacy, despite being a university topper in undergrad days.
He calmly accepted an entry level position at a mid sized software firm 2 months into the job search.
But what the world could not take away from him, was his passion for excellence which he had proven since his undergraduate days. 4 years into the firm, he made it to a fast track progression to Business Head leading almost half of the business of the company.
When he told this story to Stanford via the essay - What matters most to you and why? He used the phrase 'The pursuit of excellence'
And guess what Stanford (The most selective B-School in the world) said?
They said YES!
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