On October 7, Khakhar took the ACT and received a 36, a perfect score.
Others have also benefi ted from his studying techniques and app.
“All of my friends use it and I can see from our data that with the fi rst
couple of users, the percent of questions answered correctly increases by 20
percent,” he said. “That could be something like 12 points on the ACT, which
is crazy.”
Khakhar’s app has also won several competitions, including fi rst place in
the 2017 i.Invest National Youth Business Competition.
“It’s amazing that after all these years working on PrepUp, it’s fi nally being
seen by all these people. It makes all the years of work worth it,” he said.
“When I fi rst found a new way to study, I felt relieved and happy that I could go
back to performing at an adequate level for getting good grades. Being able
to help all these less fortunate children who can’t spend hundreds of dollars
on test prep material, having a free ACT/SAT app for all those thousands of
students, it makes it all worth it.”
His parents were hesitant at fi rst about the venture. “My parents wanted
me to get good grades and become a doctor,” Khakhar said. “I want to become
an entrepreneur because you can follow your passions in life and get happy
that way. At the beginning, they really didn’t want me to do this entrepreneur
thing but after winning these competitions and the success of the app, they’re
embracing it and have supported me throughout the process.”
Although he doesn’t know what college he’ll be attending, Khakhar has
already applied to Stanford, Harvard, Yale and Princeton in order to continue
to build his skills. He also has advice for other teens.
“Age isn’t going to hold you back,” he said. “It’s going to help you. People
want to help kids. Everything is available to you. It’s all about learning from
your mistakes and taking action.”
QNS.COM
WINTER 2017 13