Should You Trust a Travel Consultancy or Do Your Scholarship Applications Yourself?

Should you trust a travel consultancy or do your scholarship applications yourself?

This question would be a serious question in any international student or graduate who wants to travel abroad via the education route.

That is why we have taking our time to explain to you on which of the option to take.

Is a consultancy working in your best interest

The first question you must ask yourself is weather a consultancy is working in “your” best interest, or “theirs”.

A consultancy makes a name for itself by talking about “how many students got an admission” vs. “how many students got an admission of their liking”.

The KPI (key performance indicator) would be admission/conversion percentage. This allows the consulting firms to get more clients, because they show results.

And trust me when i say you’d be their next client once they show you such statistics.

While in some instances, a consultancy might also come with a money back guarantee.

They might encourage you to apply to 7-8 colleges, and if you don’t get an admission, they might promise money back. But this clause will also always have a catch –

The Evaluation of your profile by consultancies

Maybe based on their evaluation of your profile, they think that you have a higher possibility of getting an admission in a Tier 2 college than a Tier 1

so to reduce the risk of you not getting any admission, they might persuade you to apply only to Tier 2 colleges.

This is not in your best interest, because with DIY(Do it yourself) , you might have landed an admission at a better university.

In fact, had I worked with a consultancy, I might never have landed an admission at Columbia, because they have all the incentives to dissuade me as the admissions rates are so low in Ivy League Universities.

What’s more, since some of the consultancies do so many applications, you risk that your statement of purpose would look like 1000s of other applications!

The Do It Yourself Scholarship Approach

The Do it yourself (DIY) comes with its own challenges! You will have no one to review and provide feedback on your statement of purpose, resume, or guide you through the process.

You will have to ensure that you are applying within the timelines.

So you might ask if there a better way then?

Yes! Do your applications yourself, and get a guided service, professional or person  to just review your applications.

They may not come with money back guarantees as the service is just to review, but these will likely be more pocket friendly and fit for purpose.

If you think you deserve an admit in a better institute, you can apply to the better institute without anyone trying to push their agenda on to you.