Small-town girl with big-time dreams

Maheen Suleman Sheikh’s story shows how young Pakistani women are rising above mediocrity.

Sitting within the modern halls of the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business and studying under the tutelage of world-renowned scholars and eminent researchers, Maheen Suleman Sheikh realises that no dream is unattainable and no aspiration too big.

Hailing from Sialkot — a city known for its surgical instruments, sports goods and cricket star Shoaib Malik, not for any tradition of foreign higher education — Maheen has managed to secure admission to one of the world’s top business schools. And her story is one of a young woman taking her destiny into her own hands.

“It was indeed a difficult journey. The biggest issue I faced was that there was no proper counseling or guidance in Sialkot,” Maheen recalls. “I didn’t even know what liberal arts were, let alone the logistics of the application process. I had to do all my research on my own,” she says. Her school wasn’t too supportive either, she says. Like most others, it was concerned mainly with securing the highest number of A-grades as opposed to encouraging students to test themselves beyond the classroom. Her biggest, and only, resource was the internet.

But Maheen had everything else going for her: excellent O and A levels grades, with distinctions, a superb SAT score, and supportive parents willing and able to fund her higher education, which drove her to continue applying to foreign colleges against all odds.

Maheen applied to seven schools out of the top 20 in the US, including three Ivy League universities. But as rejection after rejection piled up, she saw her parents’ support turn into muted disappointment. “My parents were very disappointed but they didn’t express their feelings much because they had seen me do my best. They provided a strong support system and I made it through the rejections without sinking into depression,” recalls Maheen, the only daughter among three sons.

Maheen had applied to schools in the United Kingdom and Canada too. She got into McGill with a merit scholarship and in the University of Manchester and Warwick University in the UK. These were all great schools but she was adamant that she wanted to go to the US, as she believes that the American system better prepares one to meet the challenges of life as one can study humanities and learn languages besides fulfilling major requirements. When she finally got an offer from Bryn Mawr, a women-only liberal arts college in the US, she accepted it. It wasn’t an Ivy League as she had hoped, but it was something.

“I thought that since Bryn Mawr was a liberal arts school, I would take courses in non-business fields and do well in them, which could improve my chances of acceptance to top schools’ arts and sciences programmes,” she says.

Maheen says that that one year spent at Bryn Mawr was very productive. From a school in Sialkot to a college in the US, the difference was huge. Bryn Mawr expanded her horizons, improved her flexibility and helped her figure out what she wanted to do in life. But it lacked a real competitive environment — students only competed with themselves and not with each other. She didn’t think the real world was like that.

Within one semester, Maheen’s academic interests changed too. She studied a high-level math course, which exposed her to the theoretical end of the subject and she discovered how little she enjoyed it. She realised she was more adept at applied economics, like finance and business economics, and felt that since Bryn Mawr couldn’t satiate her academic needs and her parents were spending a ton of money on her education, she should try to transfer to another school that would provide her that opportunity.

Maheen applied for a transfer of credits to Wharton. In the six months of living on her own in the US, she had learnt much more than she did during all those years at school. Hence, her application was stronger this time: she had humanities and social sciences courses from Bryn Mawr along with regional distinctions in A levels (which she got after getting into college). Her application also included community service she did while at Bryn Mawr along with voluntary and paid job experience she gained during that time.

Maheen remembers the time when she found out she got into Wharton: “I was ecstatic when I saw the acceptance letter from Penn and I felt that my hard work had finally paid off.”

But despite being over the moon about the acceptance, Maheen went on debating whether she should really go for the offer. “As an international student, it’s hard to switch schools and adjust to a different setting, and that held me back from accepting Penn’s offer, which I did an hour before the deadline,” she says. “Moreover, going from a school where competition among peers was non-existent to the best business school in the world seemed intimidating as I had adjusted myself to Bryn Mawr already.”

But there has been no looking back for Maheen now that she is at UPenn. Initially, she found it hard to adjust to the new cutthroat environment but eventually blended in well in the course of one semester. Her experience at the college has been invaluable not only for herself but for all those aspiring to study abroad from her hometown.

“Using what I have learnt from my experience of college applications, I have tried my best to help out students from Sialkot who have a serious interest in studying abroad. I have guided them about SATs, edited personal statements and helped them choose colleges and will continue to do so,” the eager young student says.

Maheen’s story shows the positive side of Pakistan to the world — one that’s willing to send their daughters thousands of miles away to study and become capable of competing with the world. So as the classrooms of Wharton reverberate with ideas on best business practices, Maheen knows in her heart that she is not only getting a top-notch education, she is also earning the right to be called a living example of what one can achieve if one is committed despite the odds.

Published in The Express Tribune, Sunday Magazine, July 8^th, 2012.