For adults · master’s admission · a change of direction
Most people you could pay only get paid if you apply. We are paid by you, for judgment and for the work — including the judgment that the degree is not worth it.
What’s in front of you?
Get in touchRon replies within two working days. Then a twenty-minute conversation — free, no checkout — and the Compass only if it makes sense.
Whether an MBA, an MS or a policy degree is the right investment of two years and a large sum — or whether the thing you want is reachable without it.
If you apply: which schools, and what would make your application stand out beyond a polished essay.
If you don’t: what you build instead, so the direction is real and provable.
The experience problem, solved from the other end
The loop most fresh graduates meet — and, in a new direction, most career changers. The Project is the way out of it: one substantial piece of real work in the direction you’re weighing, with a real user or client as the aim. Nobody has to give you permission to start it.
What you keep is a record of work done for someone who could have said no, a person outside your current job who saw it, and a foothold in the sector you want. Some become the job. A few become the business. Either way the direction stops being a hypothesis.
Start here · 2–3 weeks
Two weeks with Ron before you commit to anything. You leave with a one-page decision — whether, where, what to build toward, and why — 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.
A structured inventory, a short piece of real work in the direction you’re weighing, and a session.
Chapter · 4–6 weeks
The degree decision and the application, together: is it worth it, which programmes and why, what your application needs to say, the statement read and pushed until it is yours.
Three live sessions with Ron over four to six weeks, the work read between them, scoped to your deadline. You leave with an application you can stand behind — or, if that is the honest answer, a written case for not applying.
Chapter · 10–12 weeks
One substantial piece of real work in the direction you’re weighing, built with AI as the tool, with a real user or client as the aim — sometimes they don’t come, and that goes on the record honestly.
About five hours a week alongside a full-time job; three live sessions; the work read weekly. What Ron does, what you do, and what is not included are on its page.
Opening prices. Paid one chapter at a time; the larger chapter in two or three interest-free instalments if you prefer. Stop after any chapter, no penalty.
How this differs from an admissions consultant
Ours is the work that makes the application true. We are paid by you and by no one else, and we say when the honest answer is “don’t apply”.
The promise
Nothing you submit is written by AI. The trail shows the work is yours.
Ron Sircar · founder
Oxford MBA. Over ten years in international development across Africa and South Asia, with the World Bank Group and UK Aid programmes — most of it as the person on the buyer’s side of the table: scoping the work, choosing the people, and managing the teams that delivered it. Two hundred-plus consultants passed through that judgment.
He has made the “is this degree worth it” call for himself and for people he managed, and he will make it with you honestly. Where your field or target programme needs a specialist, we bring one in; where we don’t know, we say so.
Tell us the decision in front of you and the deadline. We'll tell you honestly whether we can help — and if we can't, we'll say so.