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Students always free
Every student from a widening participation background uses AVA at no cost. Access sits with the student, whatever their family can pay.
Product, platform and change-management partner
Institutional admissions infrastructure for widening access
AVA helps universities, medical schools, NHS programmes, schools, MATs and third-sector organisations turn selective admissions support into a measurable, scalable system.
Evidence-led widening participation
Specialist admissions content and AI practice
Implementation support for institutional teams
20,000+
students supported
Live platform footprint across widening participation and selective admissions preparation.
20+
subject pipelines
Medicine, Oxbridge, dentistry, law, STEM, humanities and other high-tariff routes.
2.5x
Oxbridge conversion uplift
Observed interview-to-offer uplift in targeted widening participation cohorts.
4x
medical-school outcome uplift
Internal cohort evidence for targeted medicine applicants against relevant baselines.
7-8
medical-school data relationships
Research and admissions-outcome links used for evaluation and partner due diligence.
How the model works
Widening participation first, funded by a cross-subsidy
AVA is a business-to-business partnership. Institutions fund the work so that students from under-represented backgrounds use the platform free, and so local state schools gain access through place-based partnerships.
Institutions fund the access
Universities, trusts, the NHS and access organisations partner at the level that fits their programme. Their funding underwrites local state-school reach.
A cross-subsidy, not a sell
Where an independent school takes part, its contribution funds place-based partnerships and a waiting list for nearby state schools, so the money moves towards the students with least.
The cost of applying, in the open
Applying has a price tag of its own: travel to interview, entry test fees, the year between offer and enrolment. AVA points students at the bursaries and funds that meet it.
What changes when AVA runs
A structured routine, not a one-off intervention
When a partnership goes live, preparation stops depending on which school a student attends. The card on the right states the capabilities, safeguards and cohort evidence the partnership puts in place.
What a partnership puts in place
Students reach a structured, subject-specific practice plan
Schools run a repeatable preparation routine, not ad hoc help
Cohort confidence and engagement observed before interview
Effect on offer rates, measured against a comparatorEvidence review
A practical view of what the partnership creates: live product capability, governed delivery and evidence reviewed with the right comparator definitions.
AVA students are 4x more likely to get into medical school (92% versus 22%), and 2x more likely to get into Oxbridge across subjects.
Who this is for
Built for institutions that need outcomes
AVA gives each audience a different route into the same infrastructure: student-facing preparation, low-burden pilots, evidence-led reporting and an equity mechanism that helps high-quality support reach students without private networks.
Universities
Run low-burden pilots that turn applicant preparation into aggregate evidence, usage insight and access-and-participation learning.
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Medical schools
Prepare future medics and dentists for selection while linking engagement, shortlist, interview and offer outcomes in an admissions-safe evaluation.
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Third-sector access organisations
Give every student a single preparation journey while your team keeps the relationships, safeguarding and funder narrative.
ExploreCorporate philanthropy
Fund defined cohorts with cost-per-outcome reporting, board-ready evidence and an equity mechanism built into delivery.
ExploreWho we help
One platform behind every audience
Universities and medical schools, schools and trusts, the NHS and employers, access organisations, and the students at the centre. Each gets a tailored offer on one evidence-led platform.
For universities
For universities and medical schools
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For NHS and employers
For the NHS and workforce programmes
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For access organisations
For access and third-sector organisations
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For corporate philanthropy
For corporate philanthropy and foundations
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For medical schools
For medical and dental schools
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For local authorities
For local authorities
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For government
For government and policy bodies
ExploreWhat we help with
From getting in to thriving and beyond
AVA supports the whole journey: the admissions platform that gets students in, the transition support that helps them thrive at university, and the preparation that readies them for the workforce.
The admissions platform
Subject discovery, university choice, entry exams, personal statement reflection and two-way interview practice across 20+ subjects. The product students actually use to get in.
Thriving at university
Support carries on past the offer. Transition and progression resources help students arrive ready and keep thriving once they are there.
Careers and first jobs
Career navigation for students with no professional network to call on: where the routes actually lead, how employers now screen at speed, and the skills that hold their value as AI reshapes the work.
Workforce preparedness
Preparation that mirrors the values and judgement the professions select for, building earlier, fairer talent pipelines in line with the NHS Long Term Workforce Plan.
One partnership, four layers
Product, platform, evidence and transformation
AVA is a product students use, a platform you can govern, an evaluation an evaluator can defend, and a consultancy layer that takes the programme from pilot to scale.
Product
A specialist admissions support tool students actually use: subject discovery, university choice, entry exams, personal statements and interview practice across 20+ subjects.
Platform
A governable layer institutions can stand behind, with age-appropriate design, moderation and logging on every student input path, plus readiness dashboards for staff.
Evidence and evaluation
Baseline and follow-up measurement, comparator design and outcome linkage to interviews and offers wherever data sharing allows, built to be defended by an independent evaluator.
Transformation
A consultancy layer that scopes the pilot, trains staff, documents governance for risk assessment and reports honestly, so the programme survives scrutiny and scales.
Platform capability
A complete admissions support layer, not a chatbot
The product gives students structured, subject-specific practice while the partnership gives institutions governance, reporting, evaluation and a route from pilot to scale.
Structured preparation journeys
Diagnostic onboarding, admissions-test preparation, personal statement support, interview practice and transition resources.
AI practice with institutional control
Two-way interviewers, document review and targeted feedback wrapped in curriculum, policy and safeguarding guardrails.
Programme dashboards
Engagement, readiness, cohort trends and delivery signals for partners who need more than student anecdotes.
Evidence infrastructure
Baseline data, outcome linkage, survey design and reporting cycles designed for serious evaluation.
What we offer
Product, platform and consultancy in one partnership
Point solutions help a student practise. AVA is built for institutions that need to change a pathway, evidence that change and keep it affordable at scale.
The product students use
Admissions platform
A complete, subject-specific preparation journey: diagnostic onboarding, admissions-test practice, personal statement support, interview simulation and transition resources.
Learn moreMake adoption work, and prove it
Consulting
The consultancy layer is part of the product: cohort definition, staff onboarding, change management, and the evaluation and evidence that proves the programme worked.
Learn moreBespoke, governed, yours
Custom products built for you
When you need more than the platform, we build it: bespoke tools, data infrastructure and governance designed around your programme and safe for under-18s by design.
Learn moreWhy this matters
The access gap is wide, measurable and well documented
Selective admissions still track family background more than potential. These are the public figures that frame the work, from attainment to the professions to a growing medical workforce.
1.01m6
16 to 24 year-olds are not in education, employment or training, the first time the total has passed one million since 2013.
Explore£125bn7
the estimated cost to the UK each year of nearly one million young people not in education, employment or training.
Explore19.1 months8
the gap in learning between disadvantaged pupils and their peers by the end of secondary school, wider than before the pandemic.
Explore2x9
disadvantaged young people are twice as likely to be out of education, employment or training as their better-off peers.
Explore7x1
more likely to reach Oxbridge if you attend an independent school rather than a state school.
Explore36% vs 6%2
of senior professionals were privately educated, against six per cent of the population.
Explore5%13
of medical school entrants are from working-class backgrounds, against 75 per cent from the most advantaged group.
Explore1.5x13
more likely to receive a medicine offer from an independent school, even after adjusting for grades and background.
Explore6% to 14%12
the rise in UK medical entrants from the most deprived areas over the decade to 2023: real progress, not yet parity.
Explore25,7703
applicants competed for around 8,100 UK medical school places in the 2026 cycle.
Explore100,02014
full-time-equivalent vacancies across NHS England, a vacancy rate of 6.7 per cent.
Explore260k to 360k5
the projected NHS staff shortfall by 2036/37 without sustained action on training and retention.
ExploreReversed15
the 2023 pledge to double medical school places to 15,000 is now being wound back, even as competition for places rises.
ExploreCold spots16
opportunity for young people is sharply unequal by place, concentrated in the North East, North West and former industrial areas.
Explore21.9%8
of disadvantaged students had no substantial education activity at the start of Year 12, against 9.3 per cent of their peers.
Explore£19bn17
in GDP the UK forgoes each year because talent from lower socio-economic backgrounds does not reach the roles it could fill.
Explore10m18
workers are to be trained in AI skills by 2030 under the national programme, which starts at the point people are already in work.
Explore450,00019
disadvantaged pupils in Years 9 to 11 are the target of the national AI tutoring programme, which reaches them before the selective stage decides who gets through.
ExplorePrivately educated, by profession10
Senior judges
75%
Finance directors
70%
Members of Parliament
32%
The population overall
7%
2009 snapshot from the Panel on Fair Access to the Professions, against 7 per cent of the population in independent schools.
Competition for a medicine place3
Applied to study medicine25,770
Places available~8,100
UCAS applicants to medicine against the places available, 2026 cycle.
Medical entrants, by background13
Most advantaged group
75%
Lowest socio-economic group
5%
Share of medical school entrants by socio-economic group, Unequal Treatment, 2025.
Sources
- 1Sutton Trust, Access to Advantage.
- 2Sutton Trust, Elitist Britain 2025.
- 3UCAS, Growing demand for higher education.
- 4Medical Schools Council, Selecting for Excellence and contextual admissions.
- 5NHS England, NHS Long Term Workforce Plan.
- 6Office for National Statistics, Young people not in education, employment or training (NEET), UK.
- 7Department for Work and Pensions, Young people and work: interim report.
- 8Education Policy Institute, Annual Report 2025: Disadvantage.
- 9Impetus, Youth Jobs Gap.
- 10Cabinet Office (Panel chaired by Alan Milburn), Unleashing Aspiration: Fair Access to the Professions.
- 11Sutton Trust and Social Mobility Commission, Elitist Britain 2019.
- 12Medical Schools Council, Fostering Potential: 10 years on from Selecting for Excellence.
- 13Sutton Trust, Unequal Treatment: access to medicine for disadvantaged students.
- 14NHS England Digital, NHS Vacancy Statistics.
- 15British Medical Association, Medical school expansion campaign.
- 16Social Mobility Commission, State of the Nation 2024: Local to National.
- 17Demos and Co-op, The Opportunity Effect: how social mobility can help drive business and the economy forward.
- 18Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, AI Skills Boost: free AI training for 10 million workers by 2030.
- 19Department for Education, 450,000 disadvantaged pupils could benefit from AI tutoring tools.
The arc
A documented problem, decades deep
The case for fair access has been made and remade since the Milburn review named the professions a closed shop. The gap has narrowed, but it has not closed. AVA is built to be the next, measurable step, and to prove it honestly.
2009
Fair access named a closed shop10
The Milburn panel found medicine and law the most socially exclusive professions, with doctors typically growing up in the best-off families of any profession.
2014
Selecting for Excellence4
UK medical schools commit to contextual admissions, outreach and alternative routes to widen who applies and who is selected.
2019
Elitist Britain11
The country's leading people remain five times more likely to have been privately educated than the population as a whole.
2025
Progress, not parity13
The independent-school share of medicine entrants has fallen, yet just 5 per cent of entrants are working-class and advantaged applicants are still around 1.5 times more likely to get an offer.
2026
One million not in education or work6
Youth disengagement passes one million for the first time since 2013, at an estimated cost of £125 billion a year.
Evidence review
The AVA evaluation design
Evaluation work tests whether structured preparation changes offer rates. Causal language requires comparator definitions, documented limits and formal review.
Operating model
Become a governed, ready organisation
Beyond the student platform, AVA helps institutions build the data infrastructure, governance and capability to adopt new workflows well. We set it up, make it safe and help your people run it.
Admissions data infrastructure
We help you build the data foundations: clean pipelines, measurement infrastructure and governed data, so your teams have trustworthy evidence to work from.
Turn readiness into practice
Practical implementation: how to set up, adopt and scale new workflows across your teams, with the training and change management to make it stick.
Governance and policy
Governance frameworks, risk assessments and policy that stand up to scrutiny, aligned with DfE expectations, the ICO Children’s Code and the Online Safety Act.
Staff capability cohorts
Apprenticeship-style training that brings your people up to speed on new workflows day to day, so the capability lives in your team as well as in the tool.
Sovereign, secure hosting
UK-hosted and data-sovereign, with Cyber Essentials Plus, audit logging and the security posture a public institution can sign off.
Public speaking and fireside chats
Keynotes, panels, fireside chats and roundtables on responsible technology, widening access, social mobility and organisational change, hosted or moderated for your event.
Safeguarding
Built safe for under-18s, by design
Students are 16 to 18. Safeguarding is not an add-on. Every input path is moderated, age-appropriate, logged and protected.
Triple-lock moderation
Every student input passes three layers before any AI response: OpenAI moderation, a second AI safety model and a curated keyword check, with traffic-light escalation.
Age-appropriate by design
Built to the ICO Children’s Code and the Online Safety Act for under-18s, with content filtering and child-centred design throughout.
Monitored and logged
Input prompts and responses are logged for review, and serious concerns escalate to a designated safeguarding lead, so staff can stand behind it.
Protective access windows
Access is suspended overnight using device local time only, with no location or timezone data collected, protecting vulnerable students outside appropriate channels.
From aspiration to admission
A complete journey, behind one partnership
Students get specialist preparation across 17 subject pipelines; institutions get the governance, evidence and change management to stand behind it.
How we build
Evidence-led, student-tested, pinned by guards
Here is how AVA is actually built. The product improves in short cycles, from real student feedback, with every fix locked by an automated check so it stays fixed.
Built from real student feedback
Every surface starts from what real applicants tell us is confusing or missing. Feedback is logged, stratified by feature and turned into work.
Tested with the students it serves
We test the product as a 16 year old would, on the real screens, before it ships. If it would overwhelm a student, it does not go out.
Every fix becomes a guard
When something breaks once, we write an automated check so it cannot break again. Quality is pinned, not promised.
Iterated in the open with partners
Short cycles, honest reporting and a clear changelog, so partners see how the platform improves rather than a black box.
Youth voice
How students shape what ships
Student feedback runs on a traceable loop. A comment is logged in the student's own words against the screen it happened on, traced to a root cause, closed by an automated check that fails if the problem returns, and published de-identified so a partner can read the whole record.
Logged in their own words
Every student comment is recorded verbatim against the screen it happened on, with the evidence attached, then grouped by feature so patterns surface rather than anecdotes.
Traced to a cause
Each finding gets a written root-cause analysis naming the screen and the change it needs, so a student comment becomes an engineering decision with a paper trail.
Closed by a guard
A finding counts as fixed once a named automated check exists that fails if the problem returns. The student who reported it is the reason the test is there.
Published, not filed away
The de-identified record is public: what students said, what changed because of it and what is still open. Read it at /feedback.
Working alongside universities, funders and access partners
University of OxfordCrankstartUniversity of OxfordCrankstart
Evidence and due diligence
Bold outcomes, precise evidence language
Partners can use AVA for a confident external offer and a serious internal evidence case. We separate cohort outcomes, observational findings and causal conclusions.
Internal cohort analysis available for institutional review.
Evaluation design and comparator definitions available during due diligence.
GDPR, DPIA, consent and data-sharing workflows built into partnership scoping.
Outcome definitions and comparator logic documented in partner reporting.
AVA students are 4x more likely to get into medical school (92% versus 22%), and 2x more likely to get into Oxbridge across subjects.
Change management
The consultancy layer is part of the product
The implementation is designed around the decisions partners actually need to make: who to support, what to measure, how to get staff buy-in and when to scale.
01
Define the institutional problem
Map the target cohort, admissions route, existing providers, staff workflow, data permissions and success measures.
02
Launch with adoption support
Configure journeys, onboard staff, brief students, set communications rhythm and remove the barriers that stop pilots working.
03
Measure what changes
Track activation, practice quality, confidence, readiness, applications, interviews, offers and progression wherever data sharing allows.
04
Scale what proves useful
Use evidence gates at pilot, renewal and expansion points so the platform becomes infrastructure, not another disconnected tool.
How it works, end to end
From first conversation to a supported cohort
A partnership is a sequence, not a single hand-off. Each step is designed around the decisions you actually need to make.
Scope the cohort
We agree who the partnership reaches, which subjects matter, and what success would look like, so the work is shaped around your students rather than a fixed product.
Students practise
Students get specialist, subject-aware preparation they can use at any hour, with feedback that meets them where they are and a structured plan to follow.
Staff see the picture
Dashboards show engagement and progress across the cohort, so staff can direct their limited one-to-one time to the students who need it most.
Evidence and review
We report what we can stand behind, keep cohort findings separate from causal conclusions, and review the programme with you before deciding how to scale.
Safe by design
Safeguarding and data protection, not bolted on
Working with under-18s sets the bar. These are commitments that hold from the first pilot, not features added once a partnership scales.
Safeguarding on every input
Students are 16 to 18, so every input path is moderated and age-appropriate. Concerning activity is flagged and escalated, never quietly logged and forgotten.
Data protection by design
The platform follows children-first data and safety expectations. DPIA-ready processing, data minimisation, no selling and no foundation-model training are built into the partnership posture.
Logged and accountable
Inputs and responses are logged so the programme can be reviewed and any concern can be traced, in line with the standards institutions are held to.
Evidence discipline
Evidence leaders can use
AVA reports engagement, readiness, cohort movement and linked outcomes with definitions a partner can scrutinise, so the evidence case is useful inside governance, funding and renewal decisions.
Evidence discipline
Specialist preparation is available across every subject pipeline
Safeguarding, logging and reporting are built into the platform
Cohort engagement and confidence can be observed now
Outcome claims reviewed against agreed comparator definitionsEvidence review
Engagement, observational cohort findings and causal claims stay clearly separated so partners can rely on the language in a board paper.
AVA students are 4x more likely to get into medical school (92% versus 22%), and 2x more likely to get into Oxbridge across subjects.
One platform, every subject pipeline
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Explore the institutional site
Sectors
How the offer maps to universities, schools and trusts, the NHS and access organisations.
OpenServices
Product, platform and consultancy in one partnership, scoped to your programme.
OpenSubjects
The full subject range and an application timeline for every pathway.
OpenEvidence
How we separate cohort outcomes, observational findings and causal conclusions.
Open
Founder-led
Dr Yusuf Ben-Tarifite
Founder and Chief Executive
NHS doctor turned full-time founder, building AVA as the institutional infrastructure he wished existed for high-potential students without private networks.
The Diana Award Legacy Award (2024)UK Government Young Innovator Award, Innovate UKUniversity of Oxford, Balliol College
Meet the founderInstitutional partnership briefing
Bring AVA into your access, admissions or workforce strategy
We will map your cohort, current provision, delivery constraints and evidence goals, then recommend a pilot or partnership shape that can stand up to institutional scrutiny.
Book a 15-minute AI-readiness call
Tell us where your foundations stand and we will talk through whether the AI-readiness work is a fit. Pick a time below, or email us if you prefer.
Prefer email? Write to contact@theaspiringmedics.co.uk, or open the booking page in a new tab.