About AVA

Evidence-led infrastructure for fairer access

AVA began as The Aspiring Medics, built by a state-school applicant who saw how much the admissions game depended on private networks. It is now an institutional platform: specialist preparation for students, and a measurable, governable system for the organisations that support them.

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Our mission

Widening access first, funded fairly

Two students with the same potential arrive at an interview with very different preparation behind them. AVA exists to close that gap, and to fund the work in a way that widens access rather than narrowing it.

Free for the students who need it most

Students from widening participation backgrounds always use AVA at no cost. Access to specialist admissions preparation should not depend on who your parents know or what they can pay.

A Robin Hood cross-subsidy

Independent and fee-paying schools partner at full cost, and that funding is what extends place-based access to local state schools through partnerships and a waiting list. Money from families who can already buy preparation moves towards the students who have least.

Built for institutions, not consumers

AVA is a business-to-business platform. We work with universities, medical schools, NHS programmes, schools, trusts and access organisations, so that the support reaches whole cohorts rather than the few who can find it alone.

Evidence-honest by design

We separate what students engaged with from what actually changed, and we keep our language precise. Bold ambition, careful claims, full methodology available for scrutiny.

Founder-led

Dr Yusuf Ben-Tarifite

Dr Yusuf Ben-Tarifite

Founder and Chief Executive

The Diana Award Legacy Award (2024)UK Government Young Innovator Award, Innovate UKUniversity of Oxford, Balliol College

Built by someone who needed it first

AVA began as The Aspiring Medics, founded by a state-school applicant one week before he started at Oxford. He had seen how much the admissions game leaned on private networks, paid tutoring and inside knowledge that most families simply do not have. The first version was a way to hand that knowledge back, for free, to students who were every bit as capable but nowhere near as well connected.

From there it grew into an AI-powered admissions platform: specialist, subject-aware preparation that a student can practise with at any hour, with feedback that meets them where they are. The founder still practises as an NHS doctor, which keeps the work grounded in the values medical schools actually select for, and keeps the product honest about what good preparation looks like.

The institutional offer is deliberately founder-led. Partner discovery, implementation design, evidence review and senior briefings all stay close to the product roadmap, so the work is practical, fast and accountable to the students at the centre of it.

The gap we exist to close

The problem is documented, and it is old

The public record makes this case for us. The same finding recurs across more than fifteen years of independent reports, from a government panel calling fair access a closed shop to the latest youth-disengagement figures. This is the arc our mission sits inside, drawn entirely from cited sources.

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.

Medical entrants, by background13

Most advantaged group

75%

Lowest socio-economic group

5%

The share of medical school entrants from the most advantaged group against the lowest socio-economic group. The specific gap AVA was built to help narrow.

References

  1. 1Sutton Trust, Access to Advantage.
  2. 2Sutton Trust, Elitist Britain 2025.
  3. 3UCAS, Growing demand for higher education.
  4. 4Medical Schools Council, Selecting for Excellence and contextual admissions.
  5. 5NHS England, NHS Long Term Workforce Plan.
  6. 6Office for National Statistics, Young people not in education, employment or training (NEET), UK.
  7. 7Department for Work and Pensions, Young people and work: interim report.
  8. 8Education Policy Institute, Annual Report 2025: Disadvantage.
  9. 9Impetus, Youth Jobs Gap.
  10. 10Cabinet Office (Panel chaired by Alan Milburn), Unleashing Aspiration: Fair Access to the Professions.
  11. 11Sutton Trust and Social Mobility Commission, Elitist Britain 2019.
  12. 12Medical Schools Council, Fostering Potential: 10 years on from Selecting for Excellence.
  13. 13Sutton Trust, Unequal Treatment: access to medicine for disadvantaged students.
  14. 14NHS England Digital, NHS Vacancy Statistics.
  15. 15British Medical Association, Medical school expansion campaign.
  16. 16Social Mobility Commission, State of the Nation 2024: Local to National.
  17. 17Demos and Co-op, The Opportunity Effect: how social mobility can help drive business and the economy forward.
  18. 18Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, AI Skills Boost: free AI training for 10 million workers by 2030.
  19. 19Department for Education, 450,000 disadvantaged pupils could benefit from AI tutoring tools.

The landscape in public data

The conditions our work exists to change

Every figure here comes from the independent evidence base we build against, taken from public sources and labelled with its citation. Together they are why a free, specialist, governed platform is the work rather than a feature.

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.

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£125bn7

the estimated cost to the UK each year of nearly one million young people not in education, employment or training.

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19.1 months8

the gap in learning between disadvantaged pupils and their peers by the end of secondary school, wider than before the pandemic.

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2x9

disadvantaged young people are twice as likely to be out of education, employment or training as their better-off peers.

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7x1

more likely to reach Oxbridge if you attend an independent school rather than a state school.

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36% vs 6%2

of senior professionals were privately educated, against six per cent of the population.

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References

  1. 1Sutton Trust, Access to Advantage.
  2. 2Sutton Trust, Elitist Britain 2025.
  3. 3UCAS, Growing demand for higher education.
  4. 4Medical Schools Council, Selecting for Excellence and contextual admissions.
  5. 5NHS England, NHS Long Term Workforce Plan.
  6. 6Office for National Statistics, Young people not in education, employment or training (NEET), UK.
  7. 7Department for Work and Pensions, Young people and work: interim report.
  8. 8Education Policy Institute, Annual Report 2025: Disadvantage.
  9. 9Impetus, Youth Jobs Gap.
  10. 10Cabinet Office (Panel chaired by Alan Milburn), Unleashing Aspiration: Fair Access to the Professions.
  11. 11Sutton Trust and Social Mobility Commission, Elitist Britain 2019.
  12. 12Medical Schools Council, Fostering Potential: 10 years on from Selecting for Excellence.
  13. 13Sutton Trust, Unequal Treatment: access to medicine for disadvantaged students.
  14. 14NHS England Digital, NHS Vacancy Statistics.
  15. 15British Medical Association, Medical school expansion campaign.
  16. 16Social Mobility Commission, State of the Nation 2024: Local to National.
  17. 17Demos and Co-op, The Opportunity Effect: how social mobility can help drive business and the economy forward.
  18. 18Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, AI Skills Boost: free AI training for 10 million workers by 2030.
  19. 19Department for Education, 450,000 disadvantaged pupils could benefit from AI tutoring tools.

Who we serve

The same gap, seen from six sides

AVA is a business-to-business platform, so the student is always reached through an organisation that supports them. Each one faces a different version of the same documented problem. Here is who we serve and the problem each is trying to solve.

Universities

The problem

Access and participation commitments are real, but outreach often stops at aspiration and rarely follows a student through to a strong application and interview.

Where AVA fits

We extend outreach into specialist, year-round preparation and give the team a defensible picture of what actually changed.

Medical and dental schools

The problem

Contextual admissions have widened who applies, yet advantaged applicants are still more likely to receive an offer, and many strong candidates self-select out early.

Where AVA fits

We prepare applicants against the values and judgement panels select for, and work as a serious evaluation partner so widened access is matched by widened readiness.

The NHS and workforce programmes

The problem

The workforce plan needs a broader, fairer pool of future clinicians, but the pipeline still narrows long before selection for the students without networks.

Where AVA fits

We reach high-potential students earlier and prepare them in a way that mirrors professional judgement, with measurement built in.

Access and third-sector organisations

The problem

Specialist coaching is exactly what their students need and exactly what is hardest to scale on a charity budget without losing the human relationship.

Where AVA fits

We scale the specialist support layer while the organisation keeps ownership of programme design, mentoring and safeguarding.

Local authorities

The problem

A statutory duty to disadvantaged and looked-after young people meets thin budgets and little specialist admissions provision.

Where AVA fits

We give a defined cohort a free, safeguarded preparation platform that is simple to stand up and easy to report on internally.

Government and philanthropy

The problem

National widening-access and workforce priorities need an AI exemplar that is safe, governed and genuinely evidenced, not another unmanaged tool.

Where AVA fits

We provide a policy-aligned platform and independent evaluation that can contribute to the national evidence base, with spend tied to a defined cohort.

Our journey

From one applicant to institutional infrastructure

A short history of how a single state-school applicant's workaround became an evidence-led platform behind universities, medical schools, the NHS and schools.

2018

The AVA access mission begins

Founded by a state-school applicant to widen access to medicine, one week before starting at Oxford.

2023

Platform and recognition

AVA brings structured interview practice to students at scale; recognised by Innovate UK as a Young Innovator.

2024

The Diana Award Legacy Award

Founder recognised for sustained social impact in widening access to selective admissions.

2025

Institutional infrastructure

AVA partners with universities, medical schools, NHS programmes, schools and the third sector as an evidence-led admissions layer.

Reach and focus today

Widening participation students use AVA free
Specialist preparation across every subject pipeline
Partner schools and access programmes onboarded
Effect on offers, measured against a comparatorEvidence review

AVA's reach and focus, with outcome claims kept separate from current delivery and cohort evidence.

AVA students are 4x more likely to get into medical school (92% versus 22%), and 2x more likely to get into Oxbridge across subjects.

Track record

Reach we can stand behind, claims we keep precise

The headline figures describe footprint: how far the work has reached and who it has reached. Alongside them sit the principles we hold to in every partnership.

350,000+

students reached through AVA

100+

schools, trusts and access programmes engaged

13

specialist interview coaches

Widening participation comes first, in every decision and every default.

Safeguarding for 16 to 18 year olds is built into every input path, not bolted on.

Outcomes are reported with the comparator definition, the baseline and the caveats attached.

Partnerships are scoped to the cohort and the constraints, not to a fixed product.

The platform improves in short cycles from real student feedback, with fixes locked so they cannot regress.

AVA students are 4x more likely to get into medical school (92% versus 22%), and 2x more likely to get into Oxbridge across subjects.

In the field

From classrooms to lecture halls to the workforce

The work spans schools, universities and the professions students are working towards.

University and college outreach
University and college outreach

The honest version

Questions partners ask first

AVA is a business-to-business platform for the organisations that support students: universities, medical schools, NHS programmes, schools, multi-academy trusts and third-sector access organisations. Students themselves always reach the platform through one of those partners, and widening participation students use it free.

How a partnership works

From first conversation to a supported cohort

A partnership is a sequence, not a single hand-off. Each step is built around the decisions you actually need to make.

Scope it around your cohort

We start from who you need to reach and what success would look like, not from a fixed product. The partnership is shaped to the cohort and its constraints.

Students get specialist practice

Subject-aware preparation a student can use at any hour, with feedback that meets them where they are and a structured plan to work through.

Staff get the picture

Dashboards surface engagement and progress across the cohort, so limited one-to-one time goes to the students who need it most.

Evidence, then scale

We report what we can stand behind, keep cohort findings apart from causal claims, and review the work with you before deciding how to grow it.

Safe by design

Safeguarding and data protection, not bolted on

Working with under-18s sets the bar. These commitments 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, and concerning activity is escalated rather than quietly logged.

Children-first data protection

The platform follows children-first data and safety expectations, supported by a data protection impact assessment. Student data is never used commercially without a lawful basis.

Logged and accountable

Inputs and responses are logged so the programme can be reviewed and any concern traced, in line with the standards institutions are held to.

Evidence discipline

Evidence partners can scrutinise

Bold ambition still needs clear definitions. We connect each claim to a cohort, comparator and outcome field so an evaluator can trust every line.

Evidence discipline

Specialist preparation available across every subject pipeline
Safeguarding, logging and reporting built into the platform
Cohort engagement and confidence observable now
Outcome claims reviewed against agreed comparator definitionsEvidence review

Causal claims require comparator definitions, documented limits and formal review. Everything else is described honestly as in place, live or observed.

AVA students are 4x more likely to get into medical school (92% versus 22%), and 2x more likely to get into Oxbridge across subjects.

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 anyone 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
Talk to us about a partnership

Institutional 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.

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