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For Ankit John, a student at University of Windsor, Canada, study abroad seemed like a distant dream back in October 2020 . While the seeds of the dream were sown, there were many questions and doubts staring at him. A chance glance at an ad on YouTube changed all that.

Indeed the moment Ankit chanced upon a LeapScholar’s ad on YouTube, a new journey began for him, one that helped him transform his dream into reality. Upon knowing more about LeapScholar, Ankit signed up for their counselling services and was immediately assigned a counsellor, who helped him navigate the whole process – right from finding the right institution to getting admission and sending the Visa application. Today he is an excited student, having fulfilled his most cherished dream.

Ankit is among the thousands of students who have gained from the LeapScholar platform, which offers comprehensive products & services in overseas education. Founded in 2019, LeapScholar has pioneered the ‘platform way’ of end-to-end services for students pursuing international education and careers and has a thriving community of 1 million + students.

Need of the hour

The Leap offering couldn’t have come at a better time. Over the years, there has been a consistent rise in the number of Middle Class Indian families seeking global exposure and study opportunities abroad for their children. But affordability and access to the right kind of information that could help them make right decisions have been key challenges for most of them. And while the pandemic put a stop to many of their plans in 2020, the demand for study abroad saw a revival in 2021, with reportedly more than 70,000 students having moved abroad for their education in the first two months of 2021 alone. The trend was aided by governments and institutions fast making changes in their teaching and application processes to encourage more students to apply. The relaxation of visa rules by countries like the USA, Canada, UK, Ireland, and Germany, only accelerated the trend.

However, the post pandemic trends also ushered in a lot of uncertainties. A Pearson survey on post Covid-19 study for example shows that while students were not cancelling their plans to study abroad, they were still faced with a lot of question marks in terms of their study choices and the related processes, policies, etc., in a post pandemic world.

All these trends point very clearly to the need for a support system that can help students navigate through the whole process of study abroad by facilitating the right kind of aids – financial, academic and informative. LeapScholar, co-founded by IIT Kharagpur alumni, Vaibhav Singh and Arnav Kumar, is thus a need of the hour.

A one-stop shop for overseas education

Headquartered in San Francisco, California with offices in Bengaluru and Mumbai, India, LeapScholar is today one of the fastest growing startups in overseas education with a thriving community of 1 million + students.

What makes LeapScholar a go-to choice for students is in fact its very mission – to make global education accessible for Indian students across the spectrum. With its affordable counseling service and financing options along with zero compromise on quality, LeapScholar is seeking to revolutionize foreign education for Indians. The platform has live sessions with India’s best study abroad experts and it also offers access to IELTS coaching programmes and scholarships.

What’s more, being integrated with colleges, universities, scholarships, courses and programs, all on a single platform, it helps students find the most suited option with ease and make decisions based on merit, counselling and community advice, and thus ensures complete access to all the right information

Key offerings and partnerships

One of the most critical offerings of Leap’s product suite is its IELTS Prep platform, which has helped almost a million students score in high bands. The LeapScholar IELTS Prep app has over a million downloads and is one of the most popular apps globally in the IELTS prep space. The app comes with many innovative features. Counselling service for college admissions is among LeapScholar’s key offerings. Its 3,000+ counsellors across the country help students make the right, informed choices regarding their overseas education.

The counsellor also helps students with their most crucial Visa application process, among other things. For example in the case of Ankit, the counsellor from LeapScholar patiently helped him write a suitable SOP and profile, helping him with five drafts before making it a perfect Visa application and also guided him through the whole Visa application process.

LeapScholar also helps students gain competitive edge through innovative offerings like the College Credit Program (CCP) and twinning program which give them exposure to universities abroad. For example, with the CCP, students can earn credits through courses featuring top instructors from Yale, Cornell and MIT, among others, at half the cost, while the twinning program enables them to start their academic journey with a U.S. university from India and then graduate in the U.S. with a Master’s Degree.

Further, the company’s financial arm, LeapFinance, provides education loans to aspirants based on their merit. Up to 100% financing of education loans is available through LeapFinance, with the interest rates being much lower than the prevailing rates in India. Besides, it also offers students a U.S. bank account with a credit card. What’s more, with its initiative LevelUp and its host of mentors, LeapFinance will also help students land suitable jobs in their destination country .

A journey of many milestones

Today LeapScholar is on the list of 100 most promising edtech startups by HolonIQ in India and South Asia 2021, besides being among the top 10 edtech startups in India to feature in GSV Edtech 150. The company has already raised over $75 MN in venture capital from marquee investors including Sequoia Capital India, Owl Ventures, Jungle Ventures and Harvard Management Company among others.

The company’s many milestones stem from the founders’ vision – to build a student-centric and customer-obsessed company that can enable young and ambitious students to access quality global education.