Yakhyo Kadyrov

the longer the yap, the bigger the bs

1 hour = 20 minutes I don't think the majority of consultations/meetings with admission mentors should run longer than 30 minutes. Most hour-long calls could easily be compressed into half that time, because a lot of what fills them is just filler. The goal shouldn't be longer meetings, it should be more frequent ones, paired with actually working on the feedback you're given between them. A single hour-long call every two weeks will produce less progress than two 30-minute calls in that same stretch. Long meetings are needed too, especially when finalizing an application, but let's be honest: how does an applicant whose main assignment is reflecting and drafting his first essays actually benefit from a full hour? In such cases, most of the progress happens in a Google Doc tab, and that's it. Some, if not most, students will read this as the mentor trying to dodge longer sessions and put in less time. But in 90% of cases, what takes an hour to talk through can be covered in 20 minutes, and the only real difference is that the conversation becomes faster and more direct.

Guys at B&S are rocking! Said and team recently started a new program called Scholars Prep for 8th-9th graders to help them apply to UWC, Flex, YYGS and other programs which can be deciders in the future admission path for future applicants. They also created a 10-page-long free guide in Uzbek, English and Russian on the entire process of applying to those programs, meaning you don't need to do the research yourself or spend time figuring out something, just take the file using their bot. So if you're an 8th-9th grader, definitely check their channel and bot. You're gonna need them, believe me. Shohruhmirzo's Admitra is on fire too. Finally not some AI-wrapped edtech, but an ecosystem that combines writing tools, a database of all deadlines, a files vault and other important tools you'll need so you don't miss a deadline or dig around Google Docs. Notion+Google Docs+Common App in one platform, shortly speaking. Finally something students will use and benefit from. So if you're applying this year, check admitra.cloud, see what your deadlines are and start drafting your essays already, Shohruhmirzo is one of the best people to build a product like this for sure. hope to see more from them soon, but until then, have a good day!!

Imagine you decide to open a shop. For months, you scout the perfect corner spot. You spend money on realtors, you spend your time visiting each place, checking if enough people pass by, checking if you'll have trouble with local competitors and other criteria. After months of this, you finally choose the place you want to rent. All those months you spent looking for the perfect place are about to pay off. You meet the landlord, tell them you want the place, and offer to pay rent. But the moment you shake hands, another shop owner, who'd been quietly sitting in the same room the whole time, overhears everything. The second you walk out, he turns to the landlord and says: "I saw you're about to rent that spot to him, so why not rent it to us instead?" What happens next is at the landlord's mercy, he decides with whom to go. But it's always important to remember that the city is big enough that it won't run out of good places, and if our shop owner spent months looking for a good place, he will find a great one once again, or will find a good one and make it great.

The opposite of success I used to think that failure was the opposite of success, until I realized the real opposite is acceptance. We like to picture success and failure as two separate paths, right and left, as if choosing one means walking away from the other. But they're not two roads, they're the same one, and every failure is just a pothole. When you fail, what comes after? Another attempt, not sure if it will succeed, but an attempt still. You refuse to give up, and you keep pushing forward as the potholes come one after another, until you stop, look around, and think you're never going to reach the finish line you set for yourself. Then you just accept. You stay in the pothole and decide this is where you belong, not climbing back out anymore. You call that peace, the desire that kept pushing you down the road is finally gone, because you've told yourself you can't go any further. Both staying in the pothole and standing at the finish line give you relief, the relief of not having to try again. The only difference is whether you actually reached the destination you set for yourself. Failure, like potholes, happens to you, it's part of the path you chose. Acceptance, however, is something you choose

What’s scary about social media addiction is that one day you’ll sit down and realize you missed half of your life because short videos were funny and you couldn’t stop scrolling. What’s worse is that you’ll probably keep scrolling even after you realize it

B&S Admissions is looking for Admission Mentors for Asia and Europe! B&S Admissions is one of the leading and fastest-growing educational hubs in Central Asia, with a mission to help talented youth conquer the world's best universities. That mission has so…

B&S Admissions is looking for Admission Mentors for Asia and Europe! B&S Admissions is one of the leading and fastest-growing educational hubs in Central Asia, with a mission to help talented youth conquer the world's best universities. That mission has so far centered on US admissions, but we're now expanding coverage to Asia and Europe, and we need people ready to be part of that growth. Therefore we are gathering a team spread across the world, united by the goal of helping Central Asian youth reach their full potential. We're building a group of like-minded people who stay connected as a team even outside of work, the kind of network that outlasts any single project, and one you'd genuinely want to grab a late lunch with. What we offer: - Competitive pay, to be discussed based on experience - Flexible, fully remote work - Direct mentorship from the founding team, working alongside a great international team spread across the world - Be part of a rapidly-growing team, right at the ground floor of our expansion into Asia and Europe Requirements: - At least a year of experience in Asian or European admissions as a mentor or in a similar role - Currently a student at a university in the region you'll focus on (public universities preferred for Europe) - Experience applying independently to universities in your region is preferred Responsibilities: - Stay up to date on university requirements and educational changes in your region - Guide students through the application and essay-crafting process for your region's universities - Ensure a smooth application process for students applying to universities in the region - Provide strategic advice to students on extracurricular activities, test scores, and essays Apply: https://forms.gle/BLfDdEbC4XJTBY2k7

What I did in Samarkand, or the main insight from Horizon applications As you might know, I was in Samarkand a few days ago for a wedding, but what you might not know is I spent a good chunk of the hotel room hours going through Horizon applications. Every single one had to be checked twice, if not three times, because I couldn't just sort them into qualified/not-qualified piles. Every second applicant had good academics, so every EC description, every essay, every "worth mentioning" answer had to be read, compared to someone else's, then read again. Here's the main conclusion I came to after all that: You probably will not stand out academically. Look at the numbers: 49% of applications we received hit SAT 1450+ 67% hit SAT 1400+ 24.7% of applicants have taken international exams like APs, A-Levels, or IB Uzbek applicants have already testmaxxed their applications. A 1520 used to mean something two years ago, now it's just the price of entry to compete, and I'm not even talking about IELTS. APs and A-Levels help, but not nearly as much as people think, because every 4th applicant had one. So what to do to stand out? Focus on the parts of your application that aren't capped at 1600, or 5, or A*, or 42. Research, internships, passion projects, assistantships, hobbies, none of that is standardized. The experience and what you took from it is yours, and it shows something a score never will: what you actually care about, how deep you've gone into your major, what you've learned. Essays especially are literally your story. Someone else literally can't write it, they didn't live it, and even if they did, they didn't see it the way you did. Two kids can have the same 1520, but two kids can't have the same story (and if they somehow do, both are probably getting rejected). A high SAT, AP/A-Levels, and a strong GPA are simply the baseline now, that's it, high scores and mid essays won't make you stand out anymore. What actually will are the parts of your application no one else can copy, so please, don't focus on 1560 when you already have 1520, focus on ECs and essays instead. So yeah, have a good day!!

Advice we don't take Noticed something recently, and it's just interesting: since your teenage years, you're warned about and introduced to the common problems adults face, and you think you won't have that problem because, well, unlike those adults, you know the problem in depth and think you're prepared for it. And then you somehow find yourself surrounded by those very "oh that won't happen to me, I already know why it's bad and how to handle it" problems. We all know eating healthy and exercising matters, until you find yourself full of junk food, with your latest and hardest workout being a visit to your friend who lives on the 8th floor. We all know to keep good surroundings and avoid shady people, but you end up in circles that drag you down because you said, "yes, our priorities with these guys are not the same, but they're funny, they just need to be redirected a bit." We all know to be financially literate, but later you sit and wonder how your deliveries from Uzum Market and frequent taxi rides with Wildberries end up as a 7-digit weekly expense. Usually the most popular advice is indeed the most useful. It's advice given by millions who faced the same issue and arrived at the same conclusion. It's just that the popularity of the advice makes it unattractive to us, because we think we're special. We think the advice is "common," and common surely doesn't apply to us, the exceptional ones. We think we're the exception, we think what "others" face won't find us. But here's the irony: all those who thought common issues wouldn't find them, and didn't prepare for them, are still open to the chance of facing them. So simply, don't ignore common advice. Don't think that your parents telling you to prioritize your studies above everything doesn't apply to you. Don't dismiss the elderly telling you not to waste your time either. Advice is common because the problem behind it is common too. have a good evening!!

these days every influencer or company has a mission, values, principles, until you ask them what they actually did for those values. you're saying you're a patriot? back it up. you're for saving the population of tiger-colored ducks in Navoi? back it up. can't back it up? just admit your reasons aren't that noble (fame, financials, others) and live a good life. This trend of having values and a mission becomes ironic when you start asking those morally high people to show what they did for those values

Definitely give this movie a watch. It's on how Plata, a Mexican fintech, went from 0 to a $5bn valuation in 3 years. I'm finishing it, and the biggest idea so far: whatever you are building, it's always about the people. The top management of Tinkoff Bank in Russia just left their positions and fled to Mexico to build a new startup with Tinkov. Tinkov def knows how to gather great people around one project, give them meaning, and end up building great products. Great products are products of great teams. You invest in people and teams, not in projects and start-ups https://youtu.be/pWwQmikOoqg?si=RqpfNy5u_VxD2UbL

One of the key counterarguments against the death penalty is that it may push criminals toward more sophisticated cover-ups. If the penalty for getting caught is death, criminals have every reason to work harder at making sure their crimes stay undiscovered. You can threaten and punish however you want, but if someone has already made up their mind, they'll just find smarter ways to do it, and it'll be even harder to stop them. You're just leveling them up atp. Banning social media for teens runs on the same logic (kinda). Block the apps and they'll learn VPNs, fake birthdays and fake accounts; they'll find better ways, become more prepared, and that's it

On beginner gains Something I noticed recently is that beginner gains usually do more harm than good. Beginner gains, for those who don't know, are the fast progress you make at the start of anything new, when almost any effort produces visible results. You come to a new challenge, project or journey with high hopes. You think you'll enjoy it and grow, and usually you get what you were hoping for and even more. You start making fast and big progress during your first stretch of whatever you're trying to handle: Your SAT grows from 1200 to 1400 quickly You figure out your work's basics in your first week of the internship You learn the basics of a new language in a month Your video gets 10k views after 2-3 videos posted And then all of a sudden, growth stops. It actually doesn't, it just slows down, but for you, for someone who was growing faster than bamboo, it's stopped. And what comes next is probably you dropping whatever you started. Beginner gains set your expectations so high that any growth below what you expected is seen as no growth at all. You keep trying with more effort to get back to your growth rate, but usually it doesn't help because you've reached the stage where it's about consistently showing up, doing and waiting. Fast growth has passed, now only little by little. And it's the same with countries. A nation can post 8-10% growth for years going from low GDP to middle-income, and everyone calls it a miracle. But once it gets richer, growth slows to 2-3%, and the easy gains are gone. The first factories, the first roads, the first export industries do a lot of heavy lifting, and now every extra percent of growth costs much more. So don't quit something because of little progress thinking you're not growing, maybe you are. Maybe you reached a moment where significant growth requires even more significant effort and time. Growing your IELTS score from 5 to 6.5 takes a few months, but growing it from 8 to 9 can take years, if it happens at all. Or maybe you're simply not growing. have a good evening!!

What I like about the Uzbek admissions field is that it's small enough for results to speak louder than marketing. That's why the volume of a company's marketing, and the way you find out about them, tells you something. There's a difference between your friend telling you that a recent Ivy admit worked with Palonchi company, and seeing Pistonchi's ad on every social media feed you open. I'm not against marketing. Strong results still need it, for new products, to stay in the spotlight, or simply to reach more people. You just don't rely on it entirely, word of mouth does most of the work, and you should always compare how loud the marketing is with how strong the results are. So how you found out about your company says something about it. have a good night!!

We should look at rejected applications too The average ratio of acceptances to rejections at Ivies is 1 to 18 for US applicants, and for international applicants it goes way beyond 1 to 60, if not 100. Yet we focus on success cases, which is great, you should always try to understand what got someone accepted, but we overdo it. We ignore rejected applications, tens or even hundreds of files from people who probably had the same test scores, activities, honors, and mentors as those who got accepted. We look for success patterns in 6-8 acceptances, but what if we looked for patterns of failure in 50 rejected files? What if we read those rejected applications (which are easier to access than successful ones) and highlighted the common mistakes applicants make, so we can avoid them? I think if we just start looking at rejections and their root causes, not even focus, just look, we'll learn more than from acceptances. A doctor who only studies patients who survived a disease will never understand what kills people. Don't only study the survivors, study everyone. have a good day!!