A 17-year-old girl from Mumbai, Malvika Raj Joshi, does not possess Class X or XII certificate but has made it to the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
MIT has provided scholarship to the Mumbai teenager as she is pursuing her Bachelor of Science degree. She was offered a seat for being a three-time medal winner (two silver and one bronze) at the International Olympiad of Informatics or commonly known as Programming Olympiad.
The institute has a provision for accepting students who are medal winners at various Olympiads
What does the national co-ordinator of Indian Computing Olympiad have to say?
- CMIs Madhavan Mukund, who is also National Co-ordinator of Indian Computing Olympiad says, "There is absolutely no question that Malvikas admission to MIT is based on her superlative achievements at IOI. It is a credit to MITs flexibility that they can offer admission to a student who demonstrates excellent intellectual potential despite having no formal high school credentials."
- However, Madhavan made it clear that she is not a product of the system
- "This is possible only for a student whose academic achievements are outstanding, which is the case with Malvikas performance at IOI," he says.
Story of Malivika Joshi
The young girl's story started about four years ago, her mother Supriya took an unbelievably tough decision to pull her out of school when she was in Class VII at Dadar Parsee Youth Assembly School in Mumbai
- "When I started unschooling, that was 4 years back, I explored many different subjects"
- "Programming was one of them. I found programming interesting and I used to give more time to it than to other subjects, so, I started liking it at that time," she says
- She found difficult to get admission into elite Indian institutes like IIT, where one needs to clear the Class XII exams
- However, she got a seat at Chennai Mathematical Institute (CMI) where she was enrolled into M.Sc level course as her knowledge was as par with B.Sc standard.