On Beauty: Our Story
"Beauty is God's handwriting"
The Ancient Greeks called the world kosmos (κόσμος): order and beauty. By design, beauty is democratic in nature - most, if not all of us, have a direct, engaging relationship with its presence.
Beauty is a thematic cornerstone that defines our work at Estoire Consulting. Our team was founded on a unifying belief in the transformative nature of beauty, and the capacity of language to render it. The principles below describe how we approach our work.
Why Beauty?
Given the stringent demands of our nation's top institutions, most, if not all applicants will arrive with indistinguishable measurables. The same GPA, top 99th percentile SAT score, awards from the same competitions.
In an application process defined by these quantitative gauges of measurement, the essay is a unique opportunity for applicants to add texture and personal nuance to their story.
Where others blend in, an emotionally compelling narrative serves as the critical point of distinction.
"Beauty is the symbol of the morally good" (Immanuel Kant)
The Attention Economy: The Realities of the Application Process
Our nation's top universities receive anywhere from approximately 30,000 to 100,000 applications per cycle.
An applicant's cumulative work spanning four years will be given at most 3-5 minutes of attention by admissions officers. As such, we aim to design our client's applications around this consideration. To design beautifully compelling narratives within this framework.
The term kosmos (κόσμος) has two distinct meanings: beauty and order. The Ancient Greeks believed that the Universe was ordered, with beauty emerging as a consequence of that order. At Estoire, we work within structured parameters, whilst allowing complete creative liberties within them.
The Ten Second Rule
"An Extraordinary Claim Demands Extraordinary Evidence"
Every successful application is, at its core, an extraordinary claim. The applicant makes an extraordinary claim about the scope of their human potential. As such, evidence proportionate to such a claim is a critical necessity.
The admissions officer must linger on your application's story ten seconds after moving on.
This is the simple gauge our consultants use to evaluate an application's chances of success. Polished competence does not produce this effect. Familiar narratives do not. What produces this effect is a claim bold enough to demand attention, and evidence compelling enough to substantiate such claim.
We cannot guarantee absolute deliverables. Nobody can. What we offer is the craft to render the beauty an extraordinary claim demands.
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