How to Get Into a Top US College & The Real Poverty Trap | Kavya Mehta x Arnav Maheshwari l

Why would someone who barely has enough to eat save up to buy a TV? It sounds crazy, but there is a real reason for it. In this episode of Pi & the Pound, I sit down with Arnav Maheshwari to talk about the hidden daily traps that keep people poor. We dive into the eye-opening concepts from the book Poor Economics to compare what poverty actually looks like in India versus the US, and talk about why giving out small loans doesn't always help. We also break down "scarcity brain" - how constantly stressing about money literally changes how your brain works, and how handing out a simple bag of lentils got way more people to take their vaccines. Then, for the second half of the episode, we switch to college admissions. I ask Arnav exactly how he built a resume in high school that got him working with the World Bank. We cut out all the usual advice garbage and talk about what top US colleges actually look for, how to stand out without doing 100 different clubs, and how to write a college essay without sounding completely fake. What we talk about: 0:00 - Introduction 1:46 - Poverty in the US vs. India & the S-Curve trap 4:18 - Why the extreme poor have to juggle jobs like hedge fund managers? 6:17 - How your zip code decides your future 8:00 - The myth of small loans (microfinance) 10:13 - Why people buy junk food instead of healthy food 17:10 - How a bag of lentils changed healthcare in India (A Poor Economics case study) 20:50 - Why people stop trying when they lose hope 25:36 - Switching to US College Admissions 27:49 - Why you shouldn't try to be good at everything (The "Spike" strategy) 30:15 - How a high schooler gets to work with global organizations 31:47 - Resume building vs. making a real-world impact 33:28 - Writing college essays without AI or selling your soul 35:30 - Dealing with massive rejections and proving "resilience" 37:00 - The brutal truth about financial aid for international students 39:11 - The worst piece of college advice Arnav ever heard