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India Abroad October 7, 2011
W hen the Massachusetts Institute of Technology invited the Advantage Testing Foundation Math Prize for Girls to its campus, it gave the three-year- old competition, which was held earlier in New York, a big boost. And when MIT President Susan Hockfield joined Advantage Testing Foundation President Arun Alagappan last month, welcoming the par- ents and students including the top $25,000 prize winner Victoria Xia of Vienna, Virginia, the competition gained more visibility and prestige. In all, the foundation gave away $49,000 in prizes this year. “It offers the world’s largest cash prize in a math contest for young women, and hav- ing a woman who is the president of MIT joining our event was an awesome experi- ence,” said Alagappan, who runs Advantage Testing, a nationwide business that tutors high school and college students in math and sciences and also prepares them for competitive college exams. “Study after study has confirmed — the nations that consistently perform the best on international tests in math and science are those in which there is less pronounced disparity among men and women in those disciplines,” he said. “Simply put, a nation is strongest when it draws leaders from every talent pool.” The Math Prize is one of several pro- grams Alagappan runs for minority stu- dents. He takes time from his business to teach math and law to college-bound stu- dents, and spends thousands of dollars on the empowering programs for students of modest means, especially from the Latino and African-American communities. ‘Arun Alagappan is helping to find the next generation of leaders who will bring diversity, new ideas, compassion and a dif- ferent kind of leadership to institutions,’ The Wall Street Journal wrote recently. A Princeton University and Harvard Law School alumnus, Alagappan won the Class of 1869 Prize in Ethics at Princeton. He has sat on the board of editors of the Harvard International Law Journal , and served as law clerk to Judge Dorothy Nelson of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Alagappan was a teaching fellow in Harvard’s Department of Mathematics and was awarded a certificate of distinction for outstanding teaching, from the dean. Alagappan’s Advantage Testing Founda- tion has contributed over $1 million to the nonprofit, Leadership Enterprise for a Diverse America. Alagappan, who is in his early 50s, became involved with LEDA over eight years ago. The foundation’s other pro- grams include a joint effort with the Columbia University Medical Center to provide tutoring to college-age patients. Alagappan also sends nearly three dozen tutors from his company to LEDA’s sum-
Arun Alagappan, left, with Ramya Rangan, who won an honorable mention at the Math Prize for Girls
COURTESY: CASEY HENRY/ADVANTAGE TESTING FOUNDATION
With a little help from Arun Alagappan
mer institute at Princeton, an academically intensive seven-week program that also has leadership development courses. Students get a quick but intensive run through the entire college admissions process. “Nothing in this is ever a handout; on the other hand it is a hand up,” Alagappan said. “I have to say, youngsters that age, working that hard in the summer before senior year for seven weeks… it’s a lot of hard work and there are tears. It’s intense and it surely can be life transforming.” It costs LEDA about $22,000 to guide each student from the fall of his/her junior year through college graduation. LEDA says its students are represented at every Ivy League school and at virtually all other leading colleges and universities. Over half of the AT LEDA Scholars are the first in their family to attend college. About 60 stu- dents are trained by LEDA annually, with the backing of Alagappan’s foundation. Then there is Trials (Training and Recruitment Initiative for Admission to Leading Law Schools), a residential schol- arship program that is a collaboration of the AT Foundation, the Harvard Law School, and the New York University School of Law. Arun Alagappan is the son of former
Arthur J Pais profiles a businessman who gives minority girl students a hand up with math and science
Yale Professor and India Abroad Face of the Future 2009 winner Priyamvada Natarajan, left, with Ramya Rangan
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COURTESY: CASEY HENRY/ADVANTAGE TESTING FOUNDATION
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