Frequently Asked Questions

Every mentor on our team has been through selective admissions personally — Harvard, MIT, Stanford, Cornell. That matters less as a credential than as experience: we have sat with the same essay prompts, the same deadlines, and the same uncertainty about whether any of it would work.

Deliberately few. Our model depends on founders reviewing work directly rather than delegating it, which puts a hard ceiling on how many families we can take in a given cycle. When we are full, we say so rather than stretching.

Yes. We work with families across several countries and time zones, and sessions are scheduled around the student’s school week rather than ours.

A scheduled session, work between sessions, and a review of that work. Early on the sessions are about direction — what to build, what to drop. Later they become about execution: drafts, deadlines, and decisions. The rhythm is consistent enough to build habits and flexible enough to absorb a bad exam week.

One mentor owns the relationship, so there is always someone who knows the full context. Specific pieces — essays, school lists, test strategy — are reviewed by whoever on the team is strongest there, and every application is seen by a founder before it goes out.

Two to four hours in the early stages, more during application season. We plan around school terms and exam periods rather than on top of them; a programme that quietly assumes a student has unlimited evenings is not a programme, it is a wish.

Online by default, which is what makes working across time zones possible. In-person sessions happen where geography allows.

Email and a shared workspace for drafts and documents. We aim to respond within one working day, and faster during application windows when a delay actually costs something.

It depends on where the student is and what needs solving. If you are unsure, the strategy session exists precisely for that — ninety minutes to work out what is actually needed before committing to anything longer.

Yes, and many families do. The session is standalone by design; nothing about it obliges you to continue. If you do continue, what we covered carries forward rather than being repeated.

No, though the work changes shape. At that point we are closing gaps and building the strongest application from what already exists, rather than developing a profile from scratch. Application Support is built for exactly this position.

Yes. Students change direction — a Master’s applicant decides on an MBA, an undergraduate shifts from the US to the UK. We adjust the engagement rather than asking you to start again.

No, and neither can anyone else. Admissions decisions rest entirely with the institutions. What we can influence is the quality of the thinking, the strength of the profile, and the coherence of the application. Anyone who guarantees an outcome is not being straight with you.

Our students have gone to Ivy League universities, Oxbridge, and the top US and UK programmes across a wide range of fields. We publish case studies with the detail that actually matters — the starting point, not just the destination.

Yes. We will connect you with families whose situation resembled yours, with their permission. We would rather you heard it from them than from us.

We work through it with you. Deferrals, waitlists, and rejections all have responses, and the work does not stop the moment a decision arrives. Where reapplication makes sense, we help you judge that honestly.

No. We help a student find what they are trying to say and say it well, through as many drafts as it takes. But the words are theirs. If we are asked to write on a student’s behalf, we end the engagement — universities can tell, and it is not the kind of help worth having.

We tell you early rather than at the end. Our job includes holding a student to what they committed to, but not replacing their effort with ours. Where the issue is motivation rather than capability, that becomes the thing we work on.

Enough to know what is happening, not so much that the student stops owning it. We keep parents informed on direction and progress, and we keep the student responsible for the work. That balance is usually the difference between an application that reads as authentic and one that does not.

We hold what we need to deliver the programme and nothing beyond it. Student academic details are never used for anything other than the service you asked for, and we do not sell personal information. The full detail is in our privacy policy.