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.
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.
The old route from degree to first job is breaking. For a young person set up for what replaces it there is more opportunity than we ever had — and what sets them up is real work, done early, and the judgment to direct AI rather than be replaced by it.
Read the full note ↓
Nobody can forecast the world your child will graduate into. What can be known is what carries in any version of it: one real piece of work that real people used, the trail of decisions behind it, and a young person who has learned to choose the problem, judge the output and own the result. That is the same work that makes an application true. It is also the beginning of the evidence every first employer asks for.
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 process trail, skills practised on real work
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.
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
$2,000The 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
$4,000One 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 $6,000 all in, with the Compass credited. 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.
Opening prices. 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.
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.