You would love to spend a semester abroad or a shorter stay elsewhere, but do not know how and where? To the time as well as possible abroad organize, you should pick who are familiar with the destination and the conditions there you advice of people. Ideally, you are finding someone who has already gained experience abroad. For counseling on studying abroad, there are numerous consultants where students can find help in planning their study abroad.

A Good Study Abroad Education Consultant:

1. Will listen carefully to you and give specific advice for your situation.
2. Understands your strengths and weaknesses as a candidate.
3. Willfully explain all aspects of the admission process.
4. Be honest with you. For example, when discussing your choice of schools, he will tell you what chances you have to go there with your GMAT, TOEFL and GRE results.
5. Expresses sincere interest to you and your life.
6. Already during the first consultation will give you specific and useful advice that you can use even if you do not continue working with it.
7. Helps you with a search for ideas, advises how best to tell your story.
8. Tell you how long it takes to prepare a set of documents and when you can finish the job – regardless of your expectations about it or his fee (i.e., sometimes he will tell you to work longer than you expected, sometimes less).
9. Knows (or knows how to find) any information about the receipt that you need.

Bad Consultant:

1. Does not listen to you.
2. Do not ask questions, give general advice and recommendations that may not apply to your situation
3. Does not have information about training programs and universities in different countries and the process of admission.
4. Does not have high standards and does not encourage you to work carefully.
5. Refers to you indifferently as a person, because he considers his work only to check your documents or prepare you for an interview (and does it formally).
6. According to your observations, does not try to learn more about you after the first sessions.
7. Imposes to you specific ideas/stories for use in letters.
8. Works more like an editor than a consultant.

Assistance with admission is provided both by individual consultants and by agencies / companies that offer comprehensive admission services. The differences between them are as follows:

Specialization

Not all agencies and study abroad consultants have a specific line of work on which they specialize. Quite a lot of companies work on all types of education (from language courses and high school to MBA). On the one hand, this range of services is convenient for those who need to go through a lengthy preparation path before arrival (to tighten the language, prepare for the GMAT, etc.). On the other hand, in such a situation, one cannot expect the consultant to thoroughly understand all the details of the entry process, for example, in the master’s program of German business schools.

A company or consultant specializing only in MBA or Master’s programs abroad will help you better understand all the details of the chosen program to develop an admission strategy aimed at a specific institution.

Some Opinions

Sometimes in the agency, you are given the opportunity to evaluate documents by more than one employee. And here there are pluses and minuses. On the one hand, it provides a chance to get different opinions. On the other hand, these opinions may be somewhat superficial (as the consultants do not know you well) and in the end, will confuse you.

Although some agencies claim that they have an information advantage over individual consultants, this is difficult to accept, given the abundance of free (or inexpensive) information.