Shah was born and raised in
Wheaton, Illinois. Her parents, Bhadresh and Mrudula Shah, are
Gujarati Jains who moved from
Mumbai,
Maharashtra,
India to the
United States in 1970. Shah graduated from
Wheaton Warrenville South High School. She was named the 1998
DuPage County Fair Queen in July 1998. Shah graduated cum laude from
Loyola University in
Chicago with a major in theatre, minors in
psychology,
biology and
chemistry, and a concentration in pre-medicine. While a student at Loyola, Shah joined the
Alpha Sigma Alpha sorority. "I sincerely planned to go to medical school," Shah told a Wheaton, Illinois newspaper in March 2009. "I love studying science, but I realized that my passion for performing outweighed my passion for wanting to be a doctor." == Acting career ==