KOCHI: There are courses galore and education institutions aplenty. But when it comes to selecting the right course, college or university, students often end up making wrong choices. They are also unaware about scholarships offered by colleges and universities. Saji Viswanatha Nair was one such student who ended up paying `20 lakh as fees for an MBA course in New Zealand which would have cost him `6 to 8 lakh less had he enrolled as a scholarship student. The experience prompted him to found Wishill.com which provides all the relevant information at the click of a button. “Wishill is an educational search engine developed to aid students and parents in their search for the right course and right college,” said Saji, the CEO and founder of Wishill.
According to him, Wishill.com currently hosts around 20,000 colleges from all over the country, around 1,000 foreign institutions and more than 200 universities. “Our portal is an authentic educational platform that feeds you with brief but relevant information about top colleges and universities. It mainly caters to the needs of those who seek information about higher education sectors in India and abroad,” he said.
Recalling how he wasted four years of his life pursuing a course he was least interested in, Saji said, “When I was in Class XII, There was demand for male nurses. All of my friends and many of my acquaintances decided to go for BSc in nursing, with lucrative job opportunities in the Gulf and the West being a major attraction.” Saji too jumped on the bandwagon and got admitted in a nursing college in Bengaluru.
“Soon after I joined, I realised it was not my cup of tea!” he said. “Just because I decided to follow the crowd, I ended up doing a course that didn’t interest me,” Saji said. This is where Wishill.com helps the students out. “We at Wishill want to empower students with foolproof knowledge that will help them make wiser decisions. Selecting the right college is the second most important decision in a student’s life and this should never go awry,” he said.
Saji said, “Students can easily access the website. Once they log in, they can access a sea of information about colleges, courses available, admission procedures and other interactive tools which simplify the entire admission process. Our website covers over 6,000 courses in streams like engineering, management, medical, arts and many more. The list of colleges has been segregated under the criteria like ranking, rating, location, fees and cut-offs based on competitive exams.”
According to him, some of the institutions have been tagged as ‘trusted’ based on their conformity with the strict set of measurements drawn up by the Wishill team. “This doesn’t mean the other colleges featured on the site are not good. It only means that they might not have satisfied some of the criteria,” he said. Through Wishill, students can also learn about various scholarships offered by institutions. “We have a section called ‘share and earn’, through which students can earn a percentage of the scholarship by referring another student,” he said.
According to Saji, Wishill’s next step will be introducing a VR platform, where students will be able to get a virtual tour of colleges. “It will be available from next academic year,” he added. Wishill.com will soon be offering online tutorials for Class XI and XII.