A West Coast Longhorn

When Ush Patel and Ranjini Malavalli’s daughter, Anya, began researching universities, she had a clear vision of what she wanted. The University of Texas at Austin checked every box.

“There were certain pillars she really wanted, and Texas met those requirements,” Ush says. “Now it’s proving that she’s checked a lot of those boxes of what she expected and what she’s getting out of it.”

As a West Coast family with no prior ties to UT, Ush and Ranjini have come to know the University entirely through Anya’s experience. Now a sophomore majoring in international relations and global studies, she has already built strong connections with her professors and was recently accepted into a Maymester program in South Korea through the Clements Center.

For Ush and Ranjini, one of the biggest surprises has been how connected Anya feels at such a large institution.

“We hear so much about kids getting lost at big state schools, but she seems to have figured it out,” Ranjini says. “She knows her professors, goes to office hours, and they know who she is. That kind of smallness within a large institution really does exist.”

Seeing Anya thrive at UT inspired the family to create the Malavalli-Patel Family Endowed Scholarship. Rather than making a one-time gift, they were drawn to the idea of creating something with lasting impact — a resource future students could count on for years to come.

“As a family, we’ve always supported education,” Ranjini says. “Coming from immigrant parents, we understand the value of education and how much it can shape a life. Once we saw the impact UT was having on Anya, contributing felt like a natural progression.”

If you would like to support UT students, please consider making a gift as we enter the final months of the What Starts Here campaign.