Book a Consultation

Reimagine your application experience.

Structured and Personalized Admission Support for Top Universities in US, UK, and Elsewhere

We beat the odds.

Since 2014, Essai has worked with hundreds of students with its end-to-end intensive counselling program.
In that time, our students have earned:

200+

Ivy League* Offers

520+

Top 20* Offers

  • End-To-End Counselling
  • One-on-One Mentoring
  • Application Essays
Book a Consultation

Why Essai?

We put you at the centre of your application.

Proven Success
Rate

With a 92% acceptance rate into Tier 1-3 universities globally, our personalized approach ensures you’re on the right path to your dream school.

Tailored Application
Strategy

We create customized application strategies that highlight your strengths, making your profile stand out to top universities.

Expert Guidance at Every Step

Our experienced mentors provide comprehensive support, from profile building to interview preparation, ensuring you are fully prepared for every stage of the application process.
Our Results

Our students have earned 1300+ Global Select* offers!

28
29
15 (1)
7 (3)
16 (1)
6 (1)
21
20 (2)
13
8
11
2 (2)
26
30
10
27
14 (3)
18
24 (1)
12 (1)
4 (7)
23
5 (4)
17
3 (2)
1 (6)
9
19 (2)
25
22 (1)

What we do

At Essai, we specialise in end to end profile building and college application support for the best colleges and universities in the US and the UK.

Profile Building

At Essai, we guide and support standout profiles by understanding individual strengths, goals, and preferences. We ensure continuous academic progress, facilitate service delivery through a global network, and provide prompt, positive support. Our team is with you every step of the way throughout the entire process.

Application Support

Our Application Support program helps students create personal, memorable, and bold applications. We craft high-quality essays, manage 3+ application portals, offer rapid response to student and parent input, and ensure proactive deadline management. We provide end-to-end support for up to 25 applications or schools.

College Knowledge

Offering up to 20 personalized reports and plans. Students gain exclusive access to Ivy-correlated competitions, summer schools, and research opportunities. Additionally, we provide real successful Ivy League essays, Oxford, Cambridge, LSE, and Imperial College personal statements, and elite summer school application materials.

What we do

Nicholas Henderson

Our Director, Nicholas Henderson, graduated from Harvard in 2006. He has since taught at Shrewsbury School (UK), authored the Pearson’s Guide to the SAT (2010), and co-founded Essai Education in 2015. Nick splits his time between Delhi, London, and Washington DC.

Our hardworking, creative, and passionate team members are motivated by Essai’s ambition to transform the education experience.

Strategic Profile Building

At Essai, our aim is to guide, develop and support student efforts to help them create profiles that stand out. Using our proprietary resources and strategic partnerships, we are equipped to provide both advisory and operational support in relation to extracurricular activities, internships, academic research and social service leadership.

Explore and understand possible intended majors

Craft and engage with internships, summer schools, research projects, and more

Coordinate and manage the standardised testing requirements

Ideate and drive an impact-driven social initiative

Supervise and support scholastic progress

Comprehensive Application Support

Our Application Support program assists with every stage of the application process: developing a college list that suits your needs and interests, providing support and structure for your application essays, assisting in the effective completion of your application forms, and clarifying any doubts you might have along the way!

Longlist and shortlist optimal college list

Identify and engage school stakeholders

Synthesize and communicate key profile building elements

Ideate and develop creative application essays

Understand and manage portals and submit timely applications

We work with students all over the world.

Experience the Essai Difference

Essai

  • Comprehensive Admissions Guidance
  • One-on-One Expert Mentoring
  • Exclusive School Insights

Others

  • Limited or Generic Admissions Support
  • No Specialized Test Preparation
  • Minimal School Insights

Take the first step towards your dream university!

Book a consultation

Follow our Journey

This year, the headlines were full of reasons to hesitate. Geopolitical uncertainty, shifting visa landscapes, questions about America's openness to international students. The noise was loud. Our families chose not to listen. What surprised us most about this year's results was not the numbers, though the numbers were exceptional. It was the conviction. Students and parents who saw the uncertainty clearly and decided to pursue global education anyway, because they understood something the headlines often miss: American universities remain among the most transformative opportunities available to a young person anywhere in the world. The results confirmed it. Nearly half of Essai's students this year secured admission to a top-tier university. Uncertainty is a reason to plan better, not to step back. The students who committed early, built purposeful profiles, and applied with clarity and confidence are now heading to some of the finest institutions on the planet. And as Nick said: we're just getting started. 🔗 Link in bio to book a consultation. #CollegeAdmissions #USAdmissions #IvyLeague #GlobalEducation #StudyAbroad #StudyInUSA #EssaiEducation #HighSchoolStudents #CollegeApplications #ProfileBuilding #ApplicationSupport #AdmissionsResults
9
0

This year, the headlines were full of reasons to hesitate. Geopolitical uncertainty, shifting visa landscapes,...

The S.T. Yau High School Science Award doesn't give you a question to answer. It asks you to find one. Students must identify an original research gap, design a methodology, produce a full academic paper, and defend it in front of expert judges from Harvard, Stanford, and MIT. Global medal rates are among the lowest of any high school competition in the world. 0.03% overall. 0.003% gold in Mathematics. 42.6% of Essai students cleared Round 1 in 2026. Round 1 clearance, not medals, not final awards. We're specific because this competition demands it, and so do we. For students targeting STEM at Oxbridge, the Ivy League, or MIT, few credentials signal genuine research capability as clearly as this. A transcript shows grades. Round 1 of ST Yau shows that a student can think, research, and produce original work at an undergraduate level in high school. DM us to learn how we prepare students for the S.T. Yau High School Science Award. #STYauAward #YauScienceAward #EssaiEducation #STEMEducation #HighSchoolResearch #AcademicEnrichment #IvyLeaguePrep #OxbridgeAdmissions #ProfileBuilding #CollegeCounselling
7
0

The S.T. Yau High School Science Award doesn't give you a question to answer. It...

The last two weeks of summer break are the most valuable days on your calendar, because once school starts, your time gets sliced into homework, tests, and everything else. Three jobs before that happens. Seniors: get your Common App essay to a real draft, not an idea. A finished bad draft in August beats a perfect concept in October, because supplementals are coming and they multiply fast. Grade 11 students: close out whatever you started this summer. An unfinished research paper or half-built project helps nobody; two focused weeks can convert it into something that actually goes on your application. Grades 9 and 10: pick one thing you tried this summer and decide whether it's worth going deeper. Depth is built in exactly these small commitments. And everyone: sort the boring admin now, transcripts, test registrations, recommender shortlists, so September belongs to schoolwork instead of paperwork. Two weeks of unstructured time won't come back until next summer. Spend them on purpose. Need help deciding what to prioritise? Link in bio. #SummerBreak #BackToSchool #CollegeAdmissions #CommonApp #ProfileBuilding #EssaiEducation
1
0

The last two weeks of summer break are the most valuable days on your calendar,...

The John Locke Essay Prize received over 63,000 entries in 2026 from students across 150+ countries. The global shortlist rate was 18.65%, lower than Harvard's undergraduate acceptance rate. 36.36% of Essai students were shortlisted. That gap is three years in the making. Our shortlist rate has grown every year since 2024, and the methodology stays the same: we focus on argument quality, precision of evidence, and intellectual independence. The things John Locke judges reward actually. Shortlisting here carries real weight in Oxbridge and Ivy League applications. It's externally validated, globally benchmarked, and impossible to inflate. DM us to learn how we prepare students for the John Locke Essay Prize. #JohnLockeEssayPrize #JohnLockeInstitute #EssaiEducation #IvyLeaguePrep #OxbridgeAdmissions #AcademicEnrichment #CollegeCounselling #ProfileBuilding #EssayCompetition #HighSchoolStudents
47
1

The John Locke Essay Prize received over 63,000 entries in 2026 from students across 150+...

Nobody posts about how families actually pay for a US degree, so here it is. The total can cross Rs 2 crore, and no one funds that from a single source. It's a stack: financial aid first, because it's the only layer you lose by missing a deadline (CSS Profile for need-based aid, merit scholarships beyond the Ivies, and a few schools like Harvard and MIT are need-blind even for internationals). Then savings, planned to last all four years, not just the first. Then education loans, compared on total repayment, not interest rate. On-campus work is capped at 20 hours a week, so treat it as pocket money. And the college list itself is a financial decision: the same student can pay Rs 2 crore at one school and a fraction at an equally good one. We plan the admissions strategy and the funding math together. Link in bio. #StudyAbroad #EducationLoan #FinancialAid #USAdmissions #IndianStudents #EssaiEducation
3
0

Nobody posts about how families actually pay for a US degree, so here it is....

The Oxbridge interview has a mythology problem. Students prepare for a trick-question interrogation, and parents imagine a genius test. It's neither. The interview is a mock tutorial, a preview of how you'd actually be taught at Oxford or Cambridge, where learning happens in small rooms, thinking out loud with an expert. So the tutors aren't testing what you know. They're testing what you do when you don't know. They'll hand you unfamiliar material (a data set, a poem, a problem just past your syllabus) and watch how you engage. Do you reason step by step or leap to a guess? Do you use hints or ignore them? When you're wrong, do you defend the error or rework the idea? That last one matters most, because being corrected and adjusting gracefully is the entire tutorial system in miniature. This is also why memorised answers fail: the tutor simply moves one step past your preparation and watches what happens next. The good news is that this is a trainable skill. Mock interviews with unfamiliar material, practice reasoning aloud, and learning to say "I'm not sure, but here's how I'd think about it" beat any amount of answer-rehearsal. Interviews land in December; the students who feel ready started practising months earlier. Oxbridge interview prep is part of our UK admissions support. Link in bio. #Oxbridge #OxfordUniversity #CambridgeUniversity #OxbridgeInterview #UKAdmissions #EssaiEducation
4
0

The Oxbridge interview has a mythology problem. Students prepare for a trick-question interrogation, and parents...

80 years of courage, unity, and an enduring spirit of freedom. 🇮🇳 Today, we honour the sacrifices that shaped our nation and celebrate the India we continue to build; together. Happy 80th Independence Day! Jai Hind. ✨ #IndependenceDay #IndiaAt80 #HappyIndependenceDay #JaiHind #ProudIndian #FreedomAndUnity
7
0

80 years of courage, unity, and an enduring spirit of freedom. 🇮🇳
Today, we honour...

This year, across hundreds of applications in the US and UK, one pattern separated the students who got the results they wanted from those who didn't. Not grades. Not the number of activities. Not which school they attended. Purpose. Students who knew what they wanted to study, why that subject specifically, and what kind of impact they hoped to build with it, consistently stood out. Their applications had a quality that is genuinely difficult to manufacture: everything connected. The academics, the extracurriculars, the essays, the choice of universities. It all pointed somewhere. Admissions officers read thousands of applications. The ones that feel purposeful are rare, and they are remembered. This is not something you construct in the final few months before deadlines. It develops over time, through the right conversations, the right opportunities, and a clear-eyed understanding of who you are and where you are going. At Essai, building that clarity is where we start. 🔗 Link in bio to begin. #CollegeAdmissions #IvyLeague #USAdmissions #UKAdmissions #StudyAbroad #PurposeLedApplication #ProfileBuilding #EssaiEducation #HighSchoolStudents #CollegeApplications #ApplicationSupport #AdmissionsStrategy
11
0

This year, across hundreds of applications in the US and UK, one pattern separated the...

Every year, students paste their Common App essay into UCAS and wonder why Oxbridge doesn't call. The two documents answer different questions. The Common App essay asks "who are you?", it rewards personal narrative and voice, and the best ones are often about small, ordinary moments. The UCAS statement asks "why this subject, and what have you done about it?", It rewards academic engagement: the reading beyond the syllabus, the project, the question you can't stop thinking about. A moving story with no academic substance reads as fluff to a UK tutor; a reading list reads as cold to a US officer. And note: UCAS now structures the statement as three specific questions, making the academic focus even more explicit. Applying to both systems means writing two genuinely different documents, and the Oxbridge deadline is October 15. We coach both. Link in bio. #UCAS #PersonalStatement #Oxbridge #CommonApp #UKAdmissions #EssaiEducation
14
0

Every year, students paste their Common App essay into UCAS and wonder why Oxbridge doesn't...

ESSAI Partners

Future Climate Innovators School

Laurel Spring

Future Entrepreneurs School

Exclusive Summer Schools 2025