Terms of Service

These Terms govern your use of the Emerging Scholars Council website and any mentorship programme you enrol in. Please read them alongside our Privacy Policy and Refund & Payment Policy.

1. Who We Are and Who You Are Contracting With

Emerging Scholars Council ("ESC", "we", "us") is an academic mentorship service. ESC is a sole proprietorship registered in India under Udyam Registration Number UDYAM-HR-08-0060567, with its place of business at Delhi, India. Its sole proprietor is Mr. Rajinder Singh.

When you enrol in a programme, your contract is with Emerging Scholars Council in India. All decisions on whether to accept a student, on the scope and price of a programme, on the issue of invoices and on the acceptance of payment are made by ESC in India. You can reach us at info@emergingscholarscouncil.com.

2. Acceptance of These Terms

By using this website or enrolling in a programme, you accept these Terms. If you do not accept them, please do not use the service.

3. What We Provide

ESC provides one-to-one academic mentorship delivered online. Depending on the programme you choose, this may include:

• help identifying suitable programmes, supervisors and funding routes
• review, comment and editorial feedback on your CV, statement of purpose, research proposal, motivation letter and reference requests
• interview preparation and mock interviews
• guidance on how to approach and correspond with prospective supervisors
• access to our PhD position board and written resources, which are free and open to everyone

Our PhD mentorship covers STEM subjects only — the biological and life sciences, medicine and health, chemistry, physics and astronomy, engineering, materials science, computer science and AI, mathematics and statistics, environmental and earth sciences, and agriculture and food science. If your research aspirations fall outside STEM, you are very welcome to use our position board and resources, but we are not the right people to mentor you. Our Masters mentorship is not restricted by subject.

4. What We Do Not Provide

No guarantee of admission. We do not guarantee admission, funding, a scholarship or a visa. Admission decisions are made solely by the institutions you apply to, on criteria we do not control.

No visa or immigration advice. We do not advise on immigration status, visa applications, or any right to enter, work or reside in any country. Please consult a qualified immigration adviser or the relevant embassy.

No ghost-writing. Our mentors review, comment on and edit your work. Every application document must be your own. We will not write a statement of purpose, research proposal, essay or any other document on your behalf, and we will not submit an application in your name or access your application accounts.

No legal, financial or tax advice. Nothing we provide should be relied on as such.

5. Our Mentors

ESC’s mentors, including its founder, contribute their time on a voluntary and unpaid basis. No mentor receives any salary, fee, commission or share of ESC’s revenue, and no mentor holds any ownership interest in ESC.

Mentors have no authority to agree fees, accept payment, or enter into any contract on ESC’s behalf. You should never make a payment to a mentor personally. All payments are made to ESC in India against an invoice issued by ESC.

6. Enrolment

A discovery call is a free introductory conversation. It is not an offer of services and it does not create a contract.

If you decide to proceed, ESC in India will confirm your place in writing and issue your invoice. Your contract is formed when ESC confirms your place and you pay the first instalment. ESC may decline any enquiry without giving a reason.

7. Fees and Payment

Fees, currency, instalments and refunds are set out in our Refund & Payment Policy, which forms part of these Terms.

8. Duration of a Programme

Programmes have no fixed end date. Mentorship continues until you receive an admission offer, or until either party ends the arrangement under clause 11.

Continuation depends on your active participation. If you become unreachable for a continuous period of six months, we may treat your programme as concluded. No refund arises in that case.

9. Your Responsibilities

To get value from mentorship and to allow us to work properly, you agree to:

• give us accurate and complete information about your qualifications, grades and experience, and provide only genuine documents
• submit work that is your own
• meet the deadlines you agree with your mentor, and respond to messages within a reasonable time
• treat mentors with courtesy and respect
• make your own decisions about where to apply, and submit your own applications

If you provide false documents or misrepresent your qualifications, we may end your programme immediately and no refund will be due.

10. The PhD Position Board

Our position board aggregates vacancies from third-party sources and university websites. It is free to browse and requires no account.

ESC is not the employer, recruiter or agent for any position listed. We do not warrant that a listing is accurate, current, or still open, and we receive no payment from any institution for listing a position. Your application goes directly to the institution concerned. Please verify all details with the institution before relying on them.

11. Termination

You may stop participating at any time. The refund position is set out in our Refund & Payment Policy.

We may end a programme immediately if you breach clause 9, behave abusively toward a mentor, or fail to pay an instalment when it falls due.

12. Intellectual Property

Our handbooks, templates, written resources and website content belong to ESC and are licensed to you for your personal, non-commercial use. Please do not redistribute, resell or publish them.

The documents you write remain yours. We claim no rights over your CV, statement of purpose, research proposal or any other work you produce.

13. Limitation of Liability

Nothing in these Terms excludes or limits any liability that cannot lawfully be excluded or limited.

Subject to that, our total liability to you in connection with a programme is limited to the fees you have actually paid to us. We are not liable for admission outcomes, funding or scholarship decisions, visa refusals, or the acts or omissions of any university, employer or third party.

14. Changes to These Terms

We may update these Terms from time to time. The date at the top of this page shows when they were last changed. Changes do not apply retrospectively to a programme you have already paid for.

15. Governing Law and Jurisdiction

These Terms and any dispute arising out of them are governed by the laws of India, and the courts at Delhi, India have exclusive jurisdiction.

If you are a consumer resident outside India, this does not deprive you of the protection of any mandatory consumer law of your country of residence.

16. Contact

Emerging Scholars Council, Delhi, India · info@emergingscholarscouncil.com

See also: Terms of Service · Privacy Policy · Refund & Payment Policy