Pros
Ideal for recent graduates who want to experience living abroad and work in a startup-like environment. Lots of opportunities to create new courses or boot camps for students. I worked at App Ark for a year and really enjoyed working with the ambitious and supportive team. A lot of the work with students is one-on-one, but the company approach is very collaborative. The workload is based on the application season and requires both time management and flexibility to work overtime when needed. There were many opportunities to be more involved and work on additional projects for additional compensation. Compensation, housing, vacation time is very generous. Likewise, the opportunities to work from home are convenient, especially during peak season.
Cons
Work experiences can vary depending on a student-to-student basis and how well you can collaborate with different strategists and their work styles. Ideally, students could be better paired with different consultants based on their interests or personalities. Work could be distributed more evenly so that difficult students/challenging applications are evenly distributed among consultants. The job requires flexibility, open-mindedness, and empathy when working with students and there should be a clearer objective of what consultants need to deliver so that students can receive consistent, quality service. Given how the nature of the work requires constant creativity, the office environment can be stifling.