Tristan Cao
Book a free call with Tristan’s assistant
Takes six students a cycle, capped.
Tristan’s intro
I study physics at Stanford, and the spring I chose it, Harvard, Berkeley and Georgia Tech had also said yes. My grades kept those files open; what the readers said yes to was the person coming through the pages, a voice and a line of thought a stranger could want more of. Building that person on paper is my work with students.
Since last year the students I work with have landed at Stanford, MIT, UPenn, Berkeley, Carnegie Mellon and NYU, and some of them carried a 3.7. What made the difference was rarely one more award. Each time it was organisation of thought, the file arranged so that every page is recognisably the same student, saying something only that student would say. Admissions readers call the quality underneath it intellectual vitality, and a 3.7 with real thinking behind it reads better than a 4.0 that sounds like everyone.
So I work the whole application, the way an editor works a manuscript, from the first list of schools to the last supplemental due at midnight. When an essay is not working eleven days before a deadline, I stay in it with the student until it works. And before a family pays me anything, I read what the student has and write out a plan for their cycle, so you can see exactly how I think before deciding I am the right person to trust with this year.
Common questions
Before you book
What does this cost?
We are flexible, and there is a plan here that fits your family. You hear your number on the first call, before anything is agreed. What changes between plans is the kind of experience in the room: a current undergraduate at a school your student is applying to, someone who interviewed applicants for a university as an alumni volunteer, or a former admissions officer who read files and sat in committee. Every one of them is somebody we would put in front of our own family.
Do we need to know what we want before the call?
No, and most families book before they have decided anything. That is the useful time to talk. Forty-five minutes, no charge, and you will come off the call knowing what we can do for your student.
How many students does one counselor take?
Few enough that the person you meet is the person who reads the drafts. Every counselor sets their own cap and prints it on their page, so you know exactly how much of their year you are getting. If your first choice is full we will introduce you to someone on the roster who suits your student just as well.
Our student is already a senior. Is it too late?
It is not too late. Several counselors here run compressed engagements and take seniors into the autumn, and there is usually more still open in a file than a family expects. Tell us where your student is on the call and we will tell you what we can do with it.
Book a call
How the call is booked.
Tristan’s assistant is booking the six remaining places in the 2027 cycle. The call runs forty-five minutes on the phone.
Book a free call with Tristan’s assistantTristan’s assistant works from what you tell us about your student, so the call starts there rather than at the beginning.
If something changes
The agreement is held by The Scholar’s Bureau rather than by Tristan personally. If Tristan cannot finish the cycle we move your student to another counselor on this roster at the price you were already quoted, and everything written down so far moves with them.
Where Tristan’s students got in.
The Scholar’s Bureau is not affiliated with, sponsored by, or endorsed by Stanford or any other institution named on this page. Tristan Cao is an undergraduate at Stanford, speaking only as an individual, with no role in its admissions office and no influence over any admissions decision.