Practice 02

Admissions to the schools and universities of choice.

Counsel through the application process to the most considered institutions in the United Kingdom, the United States, Switzerland and the Gulf. Held to the standard of the universities themselves.

i.The shape of the work.

Admissions counsel begins long before an application is opened. It begins with the question of which institutions are right for this child, in the order they should be approached.

We do not write essays for students. We do not pretend a child is someone they are not. We do, with care, help a family understand the institutions on its list, the standards by which those institutions read, and the parts of the application that are theirs to shape.

Most engagements run for two to four academic years. We are most useful when we are introduced early.

ii.Senior schools.

The British public schools, the US boarding schools and the Swiss alpine schools each have their own way of reading a child. We know them. We have placed students at each of them.

United Kingdom

Eton, Harrow, Winchester, Westminster, St Paul's, Wycombe Abbey, Cheltenham Ladies' College, Marlborough, Charterhouse, Stowe and the leading day schools of London.

United States

Phillips Exeter, Phillips Andover, Choate Rosemary Hall, Deerfield, Lawrenceville, Hotchkiss, Groton and the senior eastern boarding schools.

Switzerland

Le Rosey, Aiglon College, Institut auf dem Rosenberg, Beau Soleil and the smaller alpine schools whose reputation is known by name only.

The Gulf

The senior international schools of Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Sharjah, Riyadh and Doha. Where a Gulf school is the right answer, we will say so plainly.

The most useful conversation a family can have is the one that names the school a child should not apply to.
From the practice's house notes

iii.Universities.

We work across the major university systems. The advice is plainer than most families expect.

  • Oxford and Cambridge - including subject-specific interview and admissions test preparation
  • The Ivy League and equivalents - Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford, MIT, the University of Chicago
  • The senior London universities - Imperial, UCL, LSE, King's College London
  • The major Scottish universities - St Andrews, Edinburgh
  • The senior Canadian and Australian institutions for relocating families
  • European universities of standing - Bocconi, Sciences Po, ETH Zürich, IE
  • Conservatoires and specialist art and music schools, where the work warrants them

iv.The process.

Year minus three

A first conversation about the child, the household and the long view. We name the universe of plausible institutions and the work that would make each of them realistic.

Year minus two

Subject choices, summer programmes, the architecture of the personal statement. Visits to a small number of campuses, by appointment.

Year minus one

Test preparation in earnest. Drafting and redrafting. Interview rehearsal where the institution requires it. The application itself.

The year of decisions

Offer triage, financial planning where relevant, transition preparation. We hold the family's nerve, then hand them on.

v.What we will and will not do.

What we do

Honest counsel. Test preparation by senior tutors. Editorial work on a student's own writing. Interview rehearsal. Liaison with admissions officers we are known to.

What we do not do

Ghost-write personal statements. Misrepresent a child's record. Promise an outcome we cannot underwrite. Trade on names that are not ours to trade on.

The list of universities and schools to which we have placed students appears, in part, on the home page. We are happy to speak to the rest in private.

The other practices, often held alongside.

All practices