How much does 5YearJourney cost?

Prices are published and paid one chapter at a time. The Compass is $500 and is credited in full against your first chapter. The Application Sprint is $2,000. The Project is $4,000. Every chapter after your first is 15% less, published rather than negotiated, so a family taking all three pays about $5,700 in total. You can stop after any chapter with no penalty.

Do you publish your prices?

Yes. Every price is on the pricing section of the site rather than quoted after a consultation, so a family can decide whether we are worth a conversation before they have one.

Do you guarantee admission, a job or an offer?

No. We commit to the thinking, the preparation, a real piece of work and honest counsel. We work toward the admission, the offer or the funding and never promise any of them. Nobody honest can.

Who actually does the work with my child?

Ron Sircar, by name. One named person is answerable to your family at every step. Where a piece of work needs a specialist we bring one in around that accountability.

A ten to twelve week chapter in which your child chooses a problem they care about, builds one substantial piece of real work, and puts it in front of real people with a real ask attached. It does not have to be code. They keep the finished work, the full decision log, and one honest page on what it taught them.

The Project — built and launched · a chapter · 10–12 weeks · $4,000

One substantial piece of real work — theirs to show, explain and stand behind.

Your child picks a problem they actually care about, builds it with AI as the tool, and puts it in front of real people — with Ron reading the work every week. It doesn’t have to be code.

Length: 10–12 wks
From them: ~5 hrs/wk
Price: $4,000

Get in touch

A conversation first, never a checkout. Every family starts with the Compass; the Project is usually the second step.

The scope, plainly

What your child does

Brings three problems they care about; chooses one.
Does the work — about five hours a week for ten to twelve weeks.
Keeps a decision log.
Puts it in front of real people and makes a real ask — including asking someone to pay for it.
Writes one honest page on what they learned.

What Ron does

Scopes it with them so it can actually be finished.
Three live sessions on the decisions that matter.
Reads the work every week and says what is good and what is not.
Helps them find the first real users.
Tells them the truth when it is not working.

What is not included

A guaranteed customer, client or launch. We expect your child to make a real ask of someone who can say no; whether anyone says yes is not ours to promise, and a refusal goes on the record honestly alongside what changed afterwards.
A coding course.
Work done for them.
An internship or placement.
Anything that has to be written by AI to exist.

The experience problem, solved from the other end

Employers ask for experience, and experience comes from employment.

The loop every fresh graduate meets: the first job wants experience, and the only place to get it is a first job. The Project is a start on the way out of it, years early — real work, for real people, that someone outside school can vouch for. Nobody has to give your child permission to start it.

What they keep is a record of work done for someone who could have said no, a person outside school who saw it work, and a first foothold in something real. It is also the strongest thing an application can carry, in a year when every essay is AI-polished. Some become the first job. A few become the business. Either way it stops being a hypothesis.

What it can lead to

Most of the value is in what they learn to do. Some of it is what they can point to.

The application

Something to write about that nobody else could have written.

More ↓

Written applications carry less than they used to, because everyone's are now polished the same way. We make no claim about how any admissions office weighs a project — nobody honest can. What we can say is that a real thing real people used, with the trail of decisions behind it, gives your child something to say that is theirs, and that they can answer questions about.

The first job

A way out of the experience loop, years early: real work someone outside school can vouch for.

More ↓

Employers ask for experience, and experience comes from employment. The Project is a start on the way out of that loop before it closes: real work, for real people, on the record.

Their own thing

The cheapest way to find out whether your child enjoys solving a problem for someone else.

More ↓

A small project with real users is the cheapest way to find out. Most stay a line on an application. A few become more.

Directed, not used

Every student uses AI now. The difference that shows is whether they directed it.

More ↓

Choosing the problem, deciding what good looks like, judging what comes back, throwing away what is wrong, and being able to say why. That is a different skill from prompting, and it is the one that is still scarce. It is also visible in the decision log, week by week, in a way it is not in an essay.

An example, not a client

A sixteen-year-old builds an intake-and-scheduling tool for a family friend’s physiotherapy clinic.

We are choosing our first families now, so this is an illustration of the shape, written honestly; when real outcomes exist they will be published with their numbers.

Weeks 1–2

She picks the problem herself from three the clinic actually has. Scope is cut hard: one form, one calendar, one reminder. About four hours a week, around school.

Weeks 3–8

She builds it with AI as the tool — directing it, checking what it produces, throwing away what is wrong. Five hours a week; a lighter fortnight during exams, agreed in advance. The work is read every week; three live sessions with Ron on the decisions that matter.

Weeks 9–11

The clinic's front desk tries it. Two things break; she fixes them. In this example the clinic keeps using it and pays a nominal fee; in another, the users don't come, and the honest page says why.

What she keeps

A working tool, someone outside school who saw it work, a decision log of every trade-off she made, and one honest page on what she learned that has nothing to do with physiotherapy. That page is what the application carries.

If you’re the one who’d be doing this

You choose what to build. You ship it under your name. You keep it.

Nobody hands you a project from a list, and it doesn’t have to be code — a service, a piece of analysis, a tool, a thing you make. You bring three problems you actually care about; the direction is set with you, not for you; the thing you make survives long after the application does. You are on the calls, and you talk. If it isn’t working, you can say so and stop.

The Project · 10–12 weeks

$4,000

Paid once, for one chapter. Never up front for anything beyond it; stop after any chapter. Two or three interest-free instalments if you prefer.

Most families take it as the middle step

The Compass first → the Project over the spring and summer → the Application Sprint in the autumn.

About $5,700 all in, with the Compass credited and the later chapters at the continuing price.

All three chapters and prices →

Start with a conversation.

Tell Ron what your child would want to build, or what's in front of them. He'll tell you honestly whether the Project is the right chapter — and if it isn't, which one is.

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.