Entrepreneurial Thinking – A Power Tool for College Applications

There is an entrepreneur within us all, and discovering those entrepreneurial strengths can provide significant benefits to each one of us. It’s not just entrepreneurs and business leaders who can benefit from entrepreneurial thinking. Even students in their teens can realize huge value from developing their own entrepreneurial thinking. Developing an Entrepreneurial mindset and skillset and developing abilities of Self Awareness, Critical Thinking, Decision Making, Growth Mindset can help guide teenagers with the choices they make – a critical factor in how they navigate their teenage years.

Apart from the obvious benefit of developing skills which will last them a lifetime, a more immediate benefit presents itself to students who are aspiring to get admission into the colleges of their dreams. Colleges that base their decisions not just on  academic transcripts but look at the student as a whole. They seek to find students who stand out in terms of their interests and aspirations. Students who are able to channelize their interests and passions into something meaningful for the communities in which they live. In these situations an entrepreneurial experience that allows students to demonstrate their personalities and interests in the form of an actual venture goes a long way in helping admissions counselors understand what drives the student and helps the students application stand out.

A ThinkStartup student, Nandan Chebbi, who recently gained admission in University of Leeds, London – top 10 in UK for Computer Science – was able to make his profile stand out with his entrepreneurial mindset and business ideas. He was applying with a purpose. He shared his experience with ThinkStartup, stating, ‘I wanted to thank you for all the help and the growth which ThinkStartup provided me. It really did ignite my entrepreneurial spirit. Before being a part of this program, I was just another techie. But this completely transformed me, and I am sure it will help many other people like me in seeing the beauty of entrepreneurship & landing up in the college they have always dreamt of.”

The Thinkstartup Program helps teenagers convert their current interest areas into real-world venture ideas through a rigorous 12 stage entrepreneurial experience. As students go through the entrepreneurial journey they go through stages of self discovery and self awareness. They start to understand their own uniqueness and their own place in the world. They gain confidence in their own abilities to create something that is completely theirs. They go from being mere consumers of information to creators and change makers. They go from reluctant learners struggling through rote learning systems to self-motivated, self-driven seekers of knowledge. As a bonus, they also get a peek into the world that they will soon be stepping into – the world of business. This experience acts as a significant boost in their overall development as well as how their profile for college applications starts to look.

Guidance from experienced mentors at every stage helps students develop their thinking further. They join a community of aspiring entrepreneurs who wish to look beyond the world of ‘only jobs’. It opens their minds to opportunities around them and they start to see the world through a different lens. The also get exposed to real world skills such as Customer Research, Business Modeling, Marketing, Financial Planning, Website Building, Networking and Business Communications. They start to make sense of the world right at the age where they are getting ready to step out on their own.