How a Perfect SAT Score Changed My Life

Growing up, I grew up pretty poor. What I did have was two hardworking parents, and I am extremely thankful for that. But besides that, we did not always have much.

I grew up working summers, being on Medicaid, and living in a small Brooklyn apartment. Anyone from New York City knows that green MetroCard life. I took the bus to school and back home every day.

Especially if you know anything about Indian culture, you know the idea that college is basically the way out. That was what I understood. But I did not really know how university worked. I went to a good high school, but I did not have many mentors walking me through the college process, and we could not afford college advisors.

All I really knew from TV, from conventional wisdom, and from what people around me said was that I needed to destroy the SAT and get into a strong college.

So I got to work. I self-studied for an entire summer before junior year. I basically locked myself in a room and figured out the best way to work on my strengths and weaknesses and maximize my score.

A huge part of it was question volume. I did a lot of questions, but I was not just doing them randomly. I was trying to reverse engineer the psychology of each question. What is this question really testing? Why is the wrong answer tempting? What strategy works for this exact type?

Eventually, I built a custom strategy for basically every type of question that came up for me. I was unwrapping each question type and breaking down the formula behind it.

When I came back to school that September, I took the exam for the first time and got a perfect score. It was a great feeling because for the whole summer, it was basically the only thing I cared about.

When college applications came around, I was able to apply broadly because my SAT was strong. I was awarded a few full scholarships and ended up going to Northeastern University in Boston, where I received an honors scholarship.

With that scholarship and my Pell Grant, college was pretty much free for me. I paid very little to attend Northeastern while many of my friends were paying around $70,000 per year. If you do the math, that is close to $300,000 over four years, and some people are still in debt from that.

I came out of school debt-free. That changed my life in a very practical way. Starting adulthood without that debt gave me freedom that I would not have had otherwise.

I know everyone likes to say college is a scam these days. I understand where that comes from. But for me, a great college gave me access to the same circles as wealthy students whose families were paying $70,000 per year plus expensive rent to be there.

That elevated my financial and social environment. I was around people, recruiters, networks, and expectations that I had not really been exposed to growing up.

Once I had a strong group of friends and a stronger network, I got internships at Wayfair, JP Morgan, and Morgan Stanley. I was not totally sure what I wanted to do with my life, so I bounced between finance and tech for a while.

Eventually I settled into Microsoft as a new grad software engineer. At 23, I was making more than $200,000 per year and working fully remote. That is a real blessing, and it allowed me to travel the world. Recently I had trips to London, Paris, and Mexico, and yes, I showed the Rolex in the video too.

I am making this point to motivate anyone who is struggling to study hard over the next few months. I want you to stay locked in and look at the other side.

If you give life real effort, it will reward you. I have not seen anyone prove that wrong to me yet. That does not mean everything is fair. It does not mean the SAT is perfect. But effort compounds, and the SAT is one place where effort can turn into opportunity pretty quickly.

I want you to study hard and take your life seriously. Do not fall into self-pity. Do not immediately accept advice from people who are coping and telling you SAT scores do not matter. Smart people can have low SAT scores, of course. But as a general rule, a strong SAT score correlates with discipline, preparation, and future options.

The SAT is not the whole story. But it is a very good shot at making money, getting scholarships, and at least starting to figure out your path.

My advice is to pay the cost up front. Study hard for the SAT now so you can have more room later in life. That is basically what happened to me.

Also, do not settle. Have a vision and work toward it. Manifestation without work is just daydreaming, but vision plus hard work can actually change your life.

I am extremely thankful for the life I have today. The SAT did not hand me everything, but it gave me a clean shot. I took that shot seriously, and it mattered.