Hafeez Lakhani

Hafeez Lakhani is Founder and President of Lakhani Coaching, an academic coaching firm he established in 2013 that has grown to serve clients across the United States and in 12 countries worldwide. He has mastered an approach to working with students in which he infuses powerful elements of motivation into expert one-on-one instruction, making this personalized approach the cornerstone of Lakhani Coaching. A twenty-year veteran in one-on-one education since beginning his work in selective admissions in 2000, he has helped students gain acceptance to Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Columbia, CalTech and other top institutions while achieving SAT improvements as large as 600 points and ACT jumps as large as 12 points. His philosophy centers on cultivating a fulfilling high school career through three major paradigms: Academics, Problem-Solving Ability and Character, emphasizing genuine ambition over checklist approaches to college admissions.

Lakhani Coaching has grown from his solo practice to a team of over a dozen coaches with diverse backgrounds, including professional opera singers, startup founders and social justice advocates, allowing clients to choose from a range of personalities, experience levels and rates from 260 dollars per hour to 1,000 dollars per hour. The team works in four key areas: selective admissions, standardized testing, academic skills and character growth. In 2018, he launched Lakhani Scholars, a 501c3 nonprofit organization providing 10,000 dollar scholarships of college admissions coaching to high-achieving, low-income students from across the US, with a goal to serve 100 low-income students per year at zero cost to those families. Before entering education, he worked as a commodities trader at Morgan Stanley on Wall Street for four years after graduating from Yale, having also worked as a nonprofit field worker in India.

Hafeez holds a Bachelor of Arts in Economics and Mathematics from Yale University, where he was Director of Youth Together, the largest inner-city high school mentoring program at Yale, having been inspired by a beloved summer job as a camp counselor. He is a perfect scorer on both the SAT and ACT. Beyond education, he writes literary fiction and creative nonfiction, having been awarded fellowships from PEN Center USA and The Center for Fiction, with his work twice lauded as a Notable Essay in Best American Essays alongside publication in The Southern Review, Crazyhorse and Salt Hill. The Huffington Post praised him in 2015 as one of eight fantastic new writers to look out for. He serves on the Board of the Santa Fe Art Institute.

Services Offered

• Selective college admissions counseling
• SAT and ACT preparation
• Academic skills development
• Character growth coaching
• College essay coaching
• College list development
• Extracurricular activity planning
• Summer program strategy
• Interview preparation
• Academic course planning
• One-on-one personalized instruction
• Team-based coaching through trained advisors
• Remote coaching via Skype and online tools
• Scholarship opportunities through Lakhani Scholars for low-income students
• Fulfilling high school career development through three paradigms