This article first appeared in The Edge Financial Daily, on May 9, 2016.

KUALA LUMPUR: Hyper-competitive. That is what vying for a place in the world’s top universities is like these days and Abric Education, a new advisory firm, is offering students a comprehensive admission strategy.

Abric Education is spearheaded by siblings Adeline and Caroline Ong, both of whom attended prestigious universities abroad.

Adeline, who read engineering at the University of Cambridge, knows that admissions to the Ivy League and Oxbridge universities are heating up, especially in the Asian region.

“There are thousands of students vying for the same few international places,” she told The Edge Financial Daily in a recent interview.

Take Harvard University for example. There were some 37,307 applicants for the graduating class of 2019, but only 2,080 admissions and 1,660 applicants are matriculating at Harvard College.

Data from the University of Cambridge shows Malaysian students are the fifth-largest group of international student applicants, but they yield a success rate of about 10.9% in gaining admissions. Singapore is the second-highest country of applicants, and yields a 19.6% success rate.

It is no surprise that students are starting to prepare for admissions to top universities from a young age. Adeline said the process can start from as early as age 14, or even earlier.

“You don’t want to [start] thinking of [the] university a year or two before they go? They’ll rush through the process ... it’ll stress your kid out as well,” Adeline said. Abric Education works with a structured approach to take on the decision-making and university application process through face-to-face engagements with parents and applicants.

“There is a lot of information on the Internet, but there’s also too much. Lots of people don’t know where to start [looking],” said Caroline, who attended the University of Pennsylvania and University of Oxford. She said Abric Education helps clients craft an application strategy to make their applications stand out among the thousands, and prepare for admission tests and interviews.

“[For] parents who want to get their child into an Ivy League, going in without a real strategy will waste time and money,” said Caroline.

It is not just studying and doing a lot of extracurricular activities, but rather doing the right combination of things, said Adeline. “You need a strategy going in,” she said.

Adeline and Caroline are collaborating with Bon Day, a similar company in Shanghai, China, founded by their brother Brian in 2008. In 2015, Brian added a more significant online component to the business.

Abric Education’s structured method is based on the curriculum that Brian has developed for his business in China, which also helps students get into the most prestigious universities in the United Kingdom and the United States.

“Abric [Education] is starting with the traditional first and later will leverage some of the technology from Bon Day,” Brian said in a Skype interview.

Brian, who attended Yale University and Stanford University, believes his method has yielded good success rates. Last year, he worked with 23 students in applying for top universities. Of those, 13 got accepted into Ivy League schools in the US, while the rest obtained places in the top 30 schools in the US and the UK.

Abric Education does not guarantee students an offer from any university. It aims to help students give their best shot in their applications after getting them to choose three schools to apply to, namely a safety school (one which a student is likely to get into), a match school (one that is suitable for their level) and a reach school (an aspirational target).

The new business has yet to gain its first client, but the sisters are confident there is sufficient demand for its services, judging by the level of interest in its soft launch, where it has lined up a free talk on how to get into the world’s top universities, so much so that Abric Education has had to add an afternoon session on May 14 to cater to the demand, said Caroline.

As for the fees for its services, Caroline said the price depends on the level of engagement and services rendered, but could range between RM20,000 and RM80,000. 

Caroline said Abric Education is looking at taking on and working with 10 clients this year, and adding more along the way. It is also looking at regional expansion to eventually cover Southeast Asia.