Blog · About

About the founder

Mumtaza Rizky Iswanda founded Pickworth Lab and personally works with its students.

Why I built Pickworth Lab

I grew up without a map for studying abroad. If I had known in Grade 9 what I know today, my life could have taken a completely different shape. Pickworth Lab is my way of becoming the change I once needed: helping students reach the schools they dream of and change the trajectory of their family's life.

For years, Rizky used each new arena to test whether he could stand beside international peers. Model United Nations took him abroad for competition. He pursued the CFA exams while aiming for globally competitive work in investment banking and consulting. He took the GMAT and went to business school, completing an arc that began with ambition and very little guidance.

That journey now shapes the work. A student should see the route earlier, understand the choices sooner, and spend high school building toward a life that once felt distant.

What Rizky does

Rizky helps Indonesian students make the next undergraduate admissions decision in the right order. That can mean testing a university shortlist, checking a qualification route, planning the next 90 days, or deciding whether SAT preparation deserves time now.

He also teaches SAT. His teaching starts with the reason behind a wrong answer. Students learn a repeatable procedure, practise it on a fresh problem, and return to it after the first correction.

Background

Rizky studied mechanical engineering at Institut Teknologi Sepuluh Nopember and later pursued graduate study at Johns Hopkins University. His engineering research on vibration reduction was published in a peer-reviewed Springer proceedings volume.

• Rizky's LinkedIn profile
• Research record at Institut Teknologi Sepuluh Nopember

How he works

Each plan separates verified requirements, working assumptions, and open questions. Rizky explains which decision changes the student's options, what evidence supports it, and what must be checked again for the student's actual intake.

The public guides show part of that method. The individual weighting stays inside the student's work because two students with the same target country can face different qualification rules, deadlines, tests, and evidence gaps.

What you can inspect

Read the decision guides to see how Rizky structures admissions questions. Students who need SAT support can also try the Pickworth Lab SAT diagnostic.