Private academic advisory for students pursuing the world’s most selective universities and conservatoires.

This is not a tutoring service. It is not an essay editing agency. It is not last-minute admissions support. Families who come to me are not looking for someone to polish an application. They are looking for someone to help design a student who is genuinely exceptional — and then to guide that student through the most important academic transition of their life.

My work begins long before applications. I assess where a student is academically, intellectually, and personally. I help build the trajectory — the academic choices, the extracurricular depth, the intellectual identity — that elite institutions recognise and respond to. By the time an application is written, the story is already true. We are not constructing a version of a student. We are revealing who they already are, and shaping who they are becoming.

One student I worked with was told by his own school that Oxford was not a realistic ambition for him. I disagreed. I had seen enough students enter the world’s finest institutions to recognise genuine potential when others had missed it. We worked together carefully and strategically. He was offered a place to read Engineering at Oxford. He accepted. That kind of outcome is not accidental. It comes from knowing what those institutions are really looking for — and from believing in a student before the result confirms it.

Where it is genuinely useful, I bring selected students into conversation with carefully chosen former students and specialists who have themselves navigated elite academic pathways. These exchanges are selective, intentional, and always integrated into the broader advisory process. They do not replace my role as strategic lead. They deepen it.

Alan accepts only a very limited number of students each academic year. This is not a policy designed for effect. It is how the work remains serious, personal, and exacting. The practice is best suited to families seeking a discreet, high-trust advisory relationship who understand that the strongest outcomes are built over time.