UNIVERSITY OPTIONS
WMG, University of Warwick, has had a long association with India. We have been engaging in partnerships and collaborations with Indian industrial companies, educational institutions and with the Confederation of Industry Industry (CII) going back twenty years. In all of these associations we have had the Warwick India Office providing us local support in very useful and various ways. Most of all, they have been helping us with student recruitment for our postgraduate courses here at WMG. For example, they have advised individual students, fielded questions from them, and held offer holder events. Kanika and her team have also helped organize and support visits of WMG and university senior staff to events in India. On the occasion of your twentieth anniversary let me thank you for the professional help and support you have provided WMG and wish you continued success in the future and look forward to a continuing association with the Warwick India Office.
As the Vice-Chancellor of The University of Warwick for ten years, I always looked to Kanika Marwaha of University Options for advice about Indian higher education. She played an important role in giving Warwick the profile it currently enjoys in India. She has the knowledge and the contacts to ensure that Indian students are well placed and will have a happy and productive overseas higher education experience. Her worth to overseas universities is without peer.
My professional association with Kanika Marwaha spans three decades and dates back to the days of the pioneering effort made by her to establish the very first counseling center at Delhi Public School, R.K.Puram. She had the vision to establish a holistic center offering a vast number of services to the students. This included guidance to students on overseas education, establishing relationships with admission counselors and facilitating admission as well as financial aid packages.Because of this effort of hers, hundreds of students gained admission into universities like Harvard, Stanford and University of Pennsylvania, among others.
Our association continued after she left D.P.S and became the India Representative for the University of Warwick. Through this platform she continues to pave the way for many young people backed by her experience and expansive knowledge in counseling and more so in the field of education.The best testament to her work is the fact that the Warwick numbers have grown exponentially over the years; from 10 in 1998 to over 300+ in 2015.
What has always impressed me about Kanika is her strong commitment to young people and the determination to find the best options for them in their chosen field. She inspires a sense of confidence among students and parents which is the hallmark of a great counselor.
She is an excellent presenter and engages the students with her power point presentations. Schools like Delhi Public School R.K.Puram, The Shri Ram Schools and Lotus Valley International School among others call her regularly to make presentations to various classes through the course of the year. Apart from this she also plays an advisory and consulting role to the Senior Management Teams in these schools.
Kanika has an immense depth of knowledge of all subjects related to counselling and what sets her apart is her objectivity while dealing with students. Her venture University Options is a foray into personalised counseling and a platform through which she provides comprehensive guidance to students seeking to study abroad.
I wish her success in all her future endeavors
Ms. Kanika Marwaha has been associated with DPS Gurgaon for more than a decade. She has been counselling parents and students regarding career choices, focusing on future goals and importance of stream selection.
Ms. Marwaha's advice is very objective as it is based on her vast experience as a teacher and counsellor. The success of her counselling sessions was evident this year when a number of parents requested the school to start a counselling session for the students of class IX as well.
The counselling sessions conducted by Ms. Marwaha are specially designed keeping in view the target audience. Her sessions with class X students revolve around the choice of stream and future goals. With class IX, she concentrates on Life Skills and personality types that help hone the correct skill sets for the future. Her interaction with the audience has always been fruitful and well received.
We wish her all the best for her future endeavours.
Over the past five years, I have been fortunate enough to work with you and your team in the Warwick India Office. My engagement with you all has always been excellent. My colleagues and I receive the very best support and professional advice on all matters relating to our work in India. And that work has grown in scale over the past years — in part due to your willingness and ability to help with the development of exciting new initiatives and collaborations. You and your team have, for example, been instrumental in the success of Warwick's Laksh volunteering programme and, more recently, the delivery our first ever Economics Summer School in Delhi. All of these initiatives are having a positive impact on Warwick's reputation in India which, in turn, continues to drive our outstanding performance in student recruitment, especially in the area of Economics where our applications have remained strong despite national trends. Indeed, on the issue of core student recruitment, your office continues to do a brilliant job for Economics, using the experience and connections that you have built up over the years to excellent effect in terms of securing the best applications to Warwick from top students.That's no mean feat when our competition is Oxford, Cambridge and LSE!
On a personal note, I am also extremely grateful for the tremendous support and help that you and your team provide each time I visit India. Knowing that I have such a reliable and experienced team on the ground is hugely important to me — and I know that other colleagues Siobhan Benita and Helen Knight for example — feel exactly the same way. You are able to make a business visit run smoothly and also be enjoyable at the same time — that is priceless. Thank you!
I am more than happy to express my thoughts on the Indian Office. As you say we have worked together over a number of years in a variety of contexts. I have always found that the advice you have given me as director of postgraduate students extremely helpful and also importantly insightful. I appreciate the straightforward way in which you present any issue including when we need to learn 'hard truths'. I value your judgement and recognise the expertise that you have in relation to the Indian market. I value the advice given. It is also the case that I can express my views about what we see as challenges or difficulties in relation to our recruitment and involvement in India. You always respond positively. I have also seen first-hand the way in which you work with applicants and equally importantly with their parents. I am always impressed with the way in which you handle these sometimes demanding 'customers' and provide in my view a reassuringly professional response. This professionalism extends to the staff that you recruit who have provided us with good support over the years. I have also experienced and appreciated greatly the support that you and your office have provided to me in my trips to India. This has involved arranging schedules, sorting me out and also supporting me in the sometimes tough contexts that arise. I always know that I can rely on the professional support that your office provides.
Just a quick note to provide some feedback to you and your team in Delhi. Since we first met in 2008 (on one of your visits to Warwick), I have been struck by your articulate enthusiasm for promoting Warwick in India. Since 2010 we have been in closer contact. This has been in relation to two set of activities: research activity in India, and student recruitment.
You have been a source of regular practical help (and moral support!) in my work for Warwick in India. In 2010, you intervened and immediately resolved a treacle-like bureaucratic situation with another research university in India. This allowed for one of my Warwick PhD students to comply with Government of India requirements for foreign nationals in India. As a result of this, she was able to undertake essential research for her PhD.
Also during 2010, due to your extensive contacts with colleagues in Delhi and throughout Indian higher education, you helped arrange the administrative details of a three-year British Academy-funded research project that I held jointly with a colleague from Jawaharlal Nehru University in India. This allowed the project (that involved mobility funds for JNU and Warwick postgraduate researchers to interact at our respective campuses) to get a timely start. Incidentally the book from the project has just been published by Oxford University Press!
More recently, in light of the university's support for the 'Another India' programme of events (2015-16), the work of you and your team has been essential in making the India-based events a grand success. The Delhi office not only facilitated events planning and management in Delhi, you also leant your office's substantial social media presence to promote events in both Delhi and Mumbai. Incidentally, the work of 'Another India' was recognised earlier this year with a 'Highly Commended' Award in the Global Contribution category of the 2016 Staff Awards. It has indeed been a collective achievement.
Alongside your support for Warwick's research-based activities in India, over the past decade, you and I have corresponded regularly about recruitment and student admissions. History, as you know, has historically had relatively Department of History low numbers of overseas students on our taught degrees. That The University of Warwick we have any from India we owe almost entirely to the efforts of you and your team.
Let me close on a more personal note. It goes without saying that your extensive knowledge both of India and Warwick mean that you are an invaluable resource for us. But it is your seemingly infinite networks of well placed contacts—backed up with decades of goodwill—that bring an extraordinary value added to your work as part of the Warwick team. Anyone who has ever heard you as a public speaker will know that you understand what Warwick is all about—innovation, rigor and lively environment—and have the ability to light up a room with that message.