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Andrew

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The Challenge

Andrew was a gifted student with a stale application narrative. His extracurriculars were collectively incoherent and superficial, while his early personal drafts relied on the familiar trope of pursuing a career in business to follow in his father’s footsteps. Overall, he lacked a clear sense of purpose.

Strategic Interventions

  • Research Mentorship: I coached Andrew through targeted cold-outreach, resulting in a direct partnership with a university economics professor for an independent research project on development economics.
  • Practical Placement: I mentored him through the application processes for a global banking internship and a Wharton summer program specifically to deepen his understanding of applied economics.
  • Institutional Leadership: Andrew founded his school’s economics club and built it into a serious platform for the ideas he was developing through his research. As president, he launched an annual competition that introduced younger students to entrepreneurship and economic innovation, giving him a concrete record of leadership and a way to positively impact his school community.
  • Narrative Restructuring: After discussions with me regarding a more original direction for his personal statement, he re-worked his piece entirely – focusing instead on his original thoughts on the socio-political impact of Singaporean economic policy.

The Result:

By presenting Andrew not just as an high-performing student, but as a rigorous and insightful critic of economic systems, we avoided the standard international business applicant clichés. Securing a 1500+ SAT and flawless A-Levels, he received offers from several Ivy League universities and elite UK business programs.

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I’ve spent the last twelve years working in elite admissions consulting. I’ve mentored students from every continent, working directly with families and as a senior figure in the leading firms in the field. I launched Dubhrosa Consulting so that I could do the work I find most meaningful and which achieves the best outcomes for students: long-form mentorship of ambitious young people across several years to accomplish whatever they’ve set their sights on.

What I believe about the admissions process, after over a decade in this field, is fairly simple. The students who succeed at the top end of the global system are not the ones who worked the hardest to optimize their applications. They are the ones who built genuine intellectual range, discovered a real sense of purpose, and engaged in meaningful projects related to that purpose – while developing strong opinions about the things they cared about and learning to defend those opinions competently in conversation with adults.

My central focus is ensuring the students I work with start on a trajectory towards working on the problems they’re genuinely passionate about. I’ve found this is the most effective way to succeed in the admissions process – and the most reliable way to make sure they end up doing something they love with their lives.

I take on a small number of families each year, and I do all the work myself.

If any of this sounds like the kind of practice your family is looking for, I’d be glad to talk.