For 15–18-year-olds
University admission
The application done properly, a real piece of work that makes it genuinely theirs, and honest judgment on where to apply and why.
Get in touch →School → university → first career
The five years from sixteen decide the most. We help your child navigate them — honestly, and early enough to matter.
Most admissions help arrives weeks before a deadline, when nothing about the candidate can change. Start earlier, one chapter at a time, and there is time to build something real, close the gaps, and leave with more options than you started with.
What’s in front of you?
Get in touchRon replies within two working days. One chapter at a time; stop after any.
- One named person, answerable to your family
- Published prices, paid one chapter at a time
- Stop after any chapter, no penalty
What happens next
- 1You write two lines about what's in front of your child.
- 2Ron replies within two working days. Then a twenty-minute conversation — free, no checkout.
- 3The Compass, only if it makes sense for you both.
Which chapter is in front of you?
For 15–22-year-olds · one real piece of work, theirs
The Project — built and launched
Your child chooses a problem they actually care about — it doesn’t have to be code — and builds one substantial piece of real work they can show, explain and stand behind, with real users as the aim — and a real ask made of someone who can say no.
Employers ask for experience, and experience comes from employment. The Project is the way out of that loop, years early.
Read about the Project →For graduates and young professionals
Master’s admission, or a change of direction
Written to you, not your parents: the application, a piece of work that proves the direction, and a straight answer on whether the degree is worth it at all.
For adults: read your page →How this differs from an admissions consultant
We improve the candidacy, not just the packaging.
A consultant usually arrives weeks before the deadline, when nothing about the candidate can change, so all that is left to work on is how it is presented. We start a year or more out, while there is still time to build something real, close a gap, and choose a direction for a reason — so the application is strong because what is behind it is.
Read the full note ↓
Their work ends at the letter, and is judged by it. Ours is the same person through the years after — the course, the first job. We are paid by your family and by no one else, and we say when the honest answer is “don’t apply”.
They are graduating into a different world.
Employers have not stopped hiring young people. What changed is the queue. Applications per opening are at levels nobody has seen before, and the roles that are growing skew senior. What gets a young person out of a queue that long is not a better application. It is work they can point to and answer questions about.
Read the full note ↓
Nobody can forecast the world your child will graduate into, and we are wary of people who claim to. What can already be seen is that written applications carry less information than they used to, because everyone’s are now polished the same way — and that employers and admissions readers are responding by putting more weight on what someone can prove in person.
One real piece of work, the trail of decisions behind it, and the ability to answer for it unassisted is what survives that shift. It is also what makes an application true.
We commit to the work. We never promise the result.
We commit tothe thinking, the preparation, a real piece of work, honest counsel
We work towardthe admission, the offer, the funding — never promised
You keepthe finished work, the full trail of decisions behind it, and one honest page on what it taught them that has nothing to do with the subject
The point is that they stop needing us.
Each chapter hands more of the work to your child than the one before it, on purpose. Nothing renews on its own, there is no membership, and we are not trying to still be here in five years.
Read the full note ↓
The measure we care about is how much less help your child needs by the end of a chapter than at the start — and we say so plainly at the close, including when the answer is not much yet. A guide who is still indispensable after five years has failed at the thing they were for.
What you actually buy
Every family starts here · 2–3 weeks
The Compass
$500Two weeks with Ron before you commit to anything. You leave with a one-page decision — and Ron will say if he is not the right person to help.
Elsewhere a first payment holds a place. This one buys a decision you keep and can act on, including the decision not to work with us.
Credited in full to your first chapter. Go on to a chapter, and the Compass has cost you nothing extra.
What the two weeks include, and what the page looks like ↓
A structured inventory, a short piece of real work your child chooses and Ron reads with them, and a session. The one-page decision covers the next move, why, what your child builds toward, and what to stop spending on.
What the page looks like — illustrative, not a client
The decision: apply for economics in the UK next autumn, not the US this year.
Why: the profile is a year short of the US round; the UK round rewards depth in one subject, which she has.
Build toward: one piece of real work in economics with a real user, done by June.
Stop spending on: the second test-prep course and the summer programme.
Chapter · 4–6 weeks
The Application Sprint
$2,000$1,700 if it is not your first chapter
The application, done properly: where to apply and why, the statement and the story it rests on, and the choice when the offers come.
How it runs ↓
Three live sessions over four to six weeks, the work read between them, scoped to your deadline. You leave with an application your child can stand behind — and honest judgment on every call along the way.
Chapter · 10–12 weeks
The Project — built and launched
$4,000$3,400 if it is not your first chapter
One substantial piece of real work, chosen by your child, built with AI as the tool, with real users as the aim.
How it runs ↓
Three live sessions with Ron, the work read every week, about five hours a week from them. What it is, what Ron does, what your child does, and what is not included are all on its page.
The Application Season · the path most families take
Compass now → the Project over the spring and summer → the Application Sprint in the autumn.
About $5,700 all in, with the Compass credited in full and every chapter after the first at the continuing price. Paid one chapter at a time, never up front; stop after any chapter. The larger chapters can be paid in two or three interest-free instalments.
When to start
- Autumn application
- the Compass by March, the Project over the spring and summer, the Sprint from August.
- The Project alone
- any stretch with twelve clear weeks.
- Not sure?
- That is what the first conversation is for.
What this is instead of
Full-service admissions help is usually one large commitment, agreed near the deadline, when nothing about the candidate can still change. A single summer programme often costs more than the Project and leaves nothing your child can show afterwards. We publish what things cost, take them one chapter at a time, and credit the first one in full.
Opening prices. Every chapter after your first is 15% less, and that price is published rather than negotiated. Stop after any chapter, no penalty.
AI
AI is the tool, not the author. Nothing submitted is written by AI.
Read the full note ↓
Your child directs it and checks it; using it well still means choosing the problem, judging the output and owning the result. Nothing submitted is written by AI, and the process trail shows the work is theirs. We use it on our side for research and first drafts — never for the judgment you are paying for.
If you’re the one who’d be doing this
You pick a problem you actually care about — it doesn’t have to be code — you build it under your name, and you keep it.
The Project, written to you →
One named person is answerable to your family.
Ron Sircar · founder
Oxford MBA; over ten years in international development with the World Bank Group and UK Aid programmes across Africa and South Asia, mostly on the buyer’s side of the table — choosing the people and managing the teams that delivered the work.
How he works with your child, and the limits ↓
How he works with your child. He sets the direction with them, not for them; reads what they produce every week and says plainly what is good and what is not; and makes the honest mid-course correction. He cannot decide the admission — no one honest can — but he is the person you call, at every step.
The limits.Where a piece of work needs a specialist — in a subject, a sector, or the admissions round itself — we bring one in around that accountability. Where we don’t know, we say so.
Know a family this might suit?
Send them the link. Add your name and we’ll know who to thank — and they’ll arrive as someone you vouched for rather than a stranger.
Start with a conversation.
Tell us which application is in front of your child. We'll tell you honestly whether we can help — and if we can't, we'll say so.
Get in touch
With under-18s: a parent is welcome in any session, nothing happens on a channel you don’t know about, and your child can stop at any point.