Why did we create it?

We realized that for a majority of the business school students, the graduate school application process is one of the most daunting times in their lives. Meaningful access to students and alumni from top graduate programs is limited and admission consultants are extremely expensive. We wanted to pay it forward and help those aspiring to get into top business schools and smoothen their transition process into those schools at a low cost. We designed a bite-size service with coaching and live progress tracking that provides the same edge as a top admission consultant but at an affordable price. The support and hand holding applicants receive from our mentors, who have successfully navigated through the same journey, will smoothen their application process and transition into Business School.

What is Ad Astra?

​Ad Astra is a community of alumni and final year graduates of top business schools. The mentors have ‘been there, done that’ and know exactly what the school wants to see in aspiring candidates. We match candidates with mentors based on similar professional backgrounds and career goals for college application guidance such as GMAT prep strategy, essay guidance, mock interviews, high impact resume, school-specific insights and more. We help prospective candidates ease the transition process into school by providing services such as student financing options, sharing student life experience, cultural overview and more. Mentors are highly curated from the best graduate programs such as Babson College, Boston University, Johns Hopkins Carey Business School, Harvard (HBS), Stanford, Wharton, Chicago Booth, Kellogg and Columbia, and from the most prestigious companies such as CitiBank, McKinsey, BCG, Google, Amazon, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan.

Meet The Team

Lakshya Daga

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Lakshya is a current MBA candidate at Babson College. He worked at EY as a tax consultant and thereafter served as the CEO at his family business ‘Avani Riverside Mall’. He founded a venture named ‘Health & Beyond’ which offers covid-19 safety products at an affordable price.
Having gone through the high cost, stress and anxiety of the college admissions process, he is passionate about solving this pain point for Indian applicants who are facing similar challenges during the application process and transition into school.

Shashank H P

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Shashank is the owner and C.E.O of Gyarahalli Thammayya Groups based in Bengaluru, India. He has been leading in the educational domain and is the Chairman of the Gyarahalli Thammayya Group of Institutions. He is the founder of Teach daily, an ERP solution built for educational institutions, that has served several schools and colleges pan India. His direct approach and strategic moves assist him with his managerial proficiency. With the skills and experience in the education space, he aims to empower all enthusiastic applicants who face hurdles in their application processes.