What Will Your Future Contribution to Society Be?

You’re reading an excerpt of Admitted by Soundarya Balasubramani. Written by an Ivy League graduate from India, this is the proven guide for students worldwide looking to pursue undergraduate or graduate study abroad in the U.S., Canada, or Europe. Purchase for instant access to the guide and other exclusive resources—including sample SOPs, sample resumes, scholarship lists, and a private community with other readers.

We know you have grand dreams you wish to realize one day. Show the committee that studying at their institution is the right means to achieve them. This goes back to the point of having questions that you want answered through your graduate school experience. If you’re hoping to become a biomedical engineer who wants to help paraplegics walk again, you need to find out the questions that your graduate school experience can answer for you: Can we use technique A to improve somatosensory reflexes by x%? What are the main causes of symptom B? What research has been conducted thus far at the university on topic C? Once you lay out your thoughts on the topic, don’t be shy in speaking in detail about your goals.

Each of us wants to leave this world better than we entered it. Why am I writing this book?

To bridge the gap between those who seek out quality education and those who can offer it.

To democratize valuable information so everyone who needs it has access to it.

To level the playing field irrespective of someone’s economic background.

So, as you describe your future goal(s), go into specifics on why and how you wish to achieve them.

In five years, I will launch India’s first virtual reality restaurant. In a food-obsessed country like India, this unique eatery, via an application, will bring the menu alive by projecting a virtual 3-D representation of food choices and present customers with the look and texture of the food item before they place the order. There would also be a projection of a mini chef who prepares the dish on the table in front of clients, waiting to be served. My vision is to channelize the profits from my restaurant into finding an effective solution to India’s food wastage problem. […] India wastes 40% of the food it produces and yet, 135 million people go hungry every day. I encountered this disturbing statistic when I volunteered as a Community Representative for The Roti Bank Foundation of India, a non-profit that collects perfectly edible surplus food from houses and distributes it to the needy. By designing the distribution process around a temperature controlled casserole which gave community residents the flexibility to drop off their rotis on the way to school/work, I collect and supply 240 rotis and feed 150 people every day.

—Aniruddh Menon, Graduate Student at Dartmouth College

​danger​ Aniruddh was meticulous in adding a footer in his essay explaining what a roti meant. If you plan on including terms that are colloquial or regional which an international audience might be unfamiliar with, please add a footer or provide some context inline.