BETA
Vasu with a group of people in an office, everyone waving at the camera.

OUR STORY

Why I started uniwise

I’m Vasu. I grew up in a small village near Vizianagaram, studied at IIIT and worked in Hyderabad for four years before coming to the UK.

I came here wanting to build a better career and a better life for my parents, but from day one I also wanted to understand the UK beyond my university: the local network, companies, job market and what life here is actually like.

I started sharing that journey on Instagram, and thousands of students began asking me about universities, jobs and whether coming to the UK made sense for them.

The more I spoke to people, the more I realised how difficult it was to make such a huge financial decision from rankings, university websites and consultant advice alone.

That is why I started visiting campuses, talking to students and graduates, and building uniwise around the things I wish I had known before I came.

Read the full story

THE FULL STORY

I’m Vasu. I grew up in a small village near Vizianagaram, studied at IIIT and worked in Hyderabad for a few years before coming to the UK for my own postgraduate journey.

Like many students, I came here with a simple hope: study abroad, build a better career and give my parents a better life.

A red dirt road running through fields near the village, with someone cycling along it. A video call with Vasu's mother, her face filling the screen and Vasu in the small window.

But I also knew something from the beginning. I didn’t want my life here to depend entirely on the university. If I wanted to build a better life in the UK, I needed to understand what was happening outside the university too.

I wanted to build a local network, understand companies more closely, see the real market conditions, and understand how people actually build a career here. So from day one, I started meeting founders, making local connections and trying to understand the local environment instead of staying within the university bubble.

Vasu with three friends on a London street at night. A group outside a university building holding a framed certificate.
Vasu with a founder he met, both smiling at the camera. Vasu with a small group on an office terrace.
Vasu bumping fists with someone he has just met.

I started sharing that journey on Instagram.

I was talking about the things I was learning, the people I was meeting, the reality of building a life here, and what I was seeing in the actual job market.

Vasu's Instagram profile. The bio reads: to the UK for my Masters. I try. I fail. I figure it out. Showing everything I learnt after I landed.
Instagram grid of Vasu's posts with view counts. More of the grid, with view counts in the hundreds of thousands. More of the grid, including university reviews with over a million views.

Then something unexpected happened.

Thousands of students started messaging me.

They weren’t only asking about universities.

They were asking about the actual job market, what life is really like here, which universities make sense, and whether they should come to the UK at all.

I started speaking to many of them personally.

And the more people I spoke to, the more I realised how difficult this decision actually was.

A spreadsheet of questions students sent, with columns for the universities they are considering and what they want to know.
Vasu on a video call with a grid of students on the screen behind him.

Students were being asked to put lakhs into a degree, often through a loan, while trying to make sense of university websites, rankings, consultants, social media and advice from friends. Everyone seemed to have an opinion, but very few people could give them the full picture.

I spoke to around 100 students personally. In roughly 90 cases, I told them that coming to the UK wasn’t the right decision for their situation. In some cases, I genuinely felt it could make sense.

That stayed with me.

Because I realised I couldn’t honestly answer many of their questions just by sitting in front of a laptop and searching online.

So I started going to the universities myself.

I wanted to walk around the campuses, see what was actually there, understand the areas around them, talk to students who were studying there, speak to graduates, and talk to people who had already gone through the next step and were working.

I wanted to understand the difference between what a university says about itself and what a student might actually experience.

Vasu outside a university campus at dusk. Vasu outside another campus building.
Vasu sitting and talking with a student inside a university building.
Vasu inside a university reception area.

And I started turning those visits, conversations and observations into real university reviews.

Not simply “This is a good university” or “This is a bad university”.

I wanted to answer the questions I would ask if I were about to spend lakhs on a degree and make that decision all over again.

  • How is the course?
  • What does the campus actually feel like?
  • What is the city like?
  • What does it cost?
  • What is student life really like?
  • What happens with placements?
  • What is the reality of finding work?
  • And what should someone know before they commit?

That is where uniwise came from.

I’m building it to help students look beyond rankings and understand the things that actually matter before making one of the biggest decisions of their lives.

The course. The cost. The campus. The city. The student experience. And what comes after.

Why it is still in beta

uniwise is still in beta because I don’t want to simply collect information from university websites and turn it into another directory.

I want to keep visiting campuses, speaking to students and graduates, checking information and adding the reality I wish I had before coming here.

That takes time.

So some universities will be more complete than others for now. I’ll keep building them out, one by one.

The goal isn’t to have the biggest list of universities. It’s to help you make a better decision.

Vasu with three friends sitting on the grass in a park.

And if you want to tell me something

I’m still building this with students, so if something is missing, something doesn’t look right, or there is something you think I should investigate, please tell me.

I read the messages whenever I can.

Because there are now more requests than I can personally handle at once, someone from my trusted team may sometimes get in touch first to understand your situation. If your situation needs my input, they can connect you with me as well.

WHAT THIS IS FOR

uniwise helps you look beyond the ranking.

Which university is right depends on your money, your loan, and what you want your life to look like afterwards.

How uniwise works
Vasu

Building uniwise

If something is missing, something doesn’t look right, or there is something you think I should investigate, please tell me.

Tell me what is missing

You can always reach me here.

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