When it comes to studying abroad, Cambodian parents and students have two choices. The first choice is to apply by yourselves, that can involve both or either applications by hard admissions and online admissions. The second choice is to seek supports from education agents who have expertise in sending students to study abroad. What it takes you for the second choice is to follow what is asked for by the agents and some fees.
Now, we are coming to a decision whether we should self-apply to study abroad or apply through a consultancy for studying abroad to be successfully admitted to our preferred schools or universities. To choose one or another, we need to ask some questions such as whether it is cost-saving, whether it is time-efficient and whether it is smooth.
In this article, we are going to go through all the three questions to come to a conclusive decision over one or another, self-application or an education agent.
Is It Cost-Saving?
It is smart thinking to count and budget everything to know differences of costs between self-applications and applications through an advice consultancy. For self-applications, your budgeting should include admission fees, visa fees, insurance fees, flight ticket fees besides the main tuition fees required by your preferred schools. Moreover, you need to reserve some money for emergency cases that you can encounter such as not meeting the requirements for visas, your hard admission packages being sent to wrong addresses or the worst-case scenario your booking flight tickets from scam companies which can be plenty.
Now, you are applying through an education agency that requires you to pay only one time off for everything that they can arrange for you or process by process. It can be less than self-applications because the education consultant has partnerships with flight companies, delivery companies and your preferred schools, or it can be more because they need to take some profits to run the business and only if every step in the self-application goes right. No matter what, there is no emergency cost to be prepared with applications through an education agent because your nearby consultancy has expertise in what it is doing.
When we need to come to a conclusion, applying to schools through an education agent is more cost-saving because it doesn’t take your emergency costs when the consultancy has its hand-on experience. Some of you who never send children abroad can miss some required documents or lack experience, which costs you more than an education agent. Furthermore, the consultant can guide Cambodian students for affordable accommodations and foods at those preferred schools. It can be costly for the first few months because Cambodian students don’t know the right places to stay and eat yet with the self-applications.
- Applications through an education agent being more cost-saving
- The agent being affordable because of it having partnerships with relevant people
- Self-applications being affordable if everything going as planned
- Self-applications often requiring extra costs because of experience lacking
- Self-applications requiring emergency budgeting to prepare for bad cases
- Education agent having expertise and hands-on experience sending students abroad
Is It Time-Efficient?
Applications through Cambodia-based study-abroad consultants such as WEduAbroad are literally more time-efficient. It is time-efficient because they are partners with and know those whom they should contact, from your admission and visa processing to when you are going to live and study abroad. There should not be a fuss that everything is yet predictable and has its timelines with the consultancy for studying abroad except for very few chances of exceptional cases such as your favourite high-schools or universities not being partnered with those education agents. Meanwhile, they know the right schools or universities for you because they have teams waiting to do researches about schools and job markets.
Self-applications are not time-efficient because of some following reasons. Again, you don’t have hand-on experience. There can be times you need to go back and forth just to get it right. Without experience, you can miss details of requirements from your favourite schools and need to go back all over again. Furthermore, not every school and university you want to study at has contact people who are friendly and welcoming. Some prestigious universities don’t have the focal contact points or unsupportive contacting people that you need to go rough throughout the entire processes. It can be the same as buying flight tickets and visa application processing. There are times those people are friendly, yet they are busy. You can imagine if everyone is self-applying compared with ten or twenty Cambodian students applying together via an education agent.
Consequently, applying to study oversea via education agents is much more time-efficient. There is no doubt that those people have experience and know their things because they always send students abroad. They do have schedules for specific timelines and what documents they specifically want from you. Cambodian students should not have a wonder that they get all the details because they have systems for everything, and it is their businesses to make the process time-efficient and highly predictable for students.
- Applications through education agents are much more time-efficient
- Agents such as WEduAbroad having partners and knowing relevant people
- Oversea consultancies having insights about schools and job markets
- Education consultancies having systems for their working
- Applications through agents are predictable
- Self-applications requiring back-and-forth processing
- Self-applications and contacting unsupportive people
- Self-applications being not very predictable
Is It Smooth?
Everything is smooth with an education agent because they have a team waiting to check out and evaluate your qualifications and profiles. Furthermore, they have people right there to offer you advice on how to write excellent essays for admissions. Some education consultancies such as WEduAbroad have a translation service that you don’t need to seek services from other companies which can add a cost. Cambodian students need to go through everything with and via an education agent only for studying oversea.
Cambodian students want to know whether the process is smooth for self-applications or not. If you are smart and detail-oriented, the process can be smooth. No matter what, many among us are students who don’t have working experience yet, so the detail-oriented skills are still far from good. You can be rejected by your preferred schools/universities for admissions and embassies for visas when you are not detailed enough. Furthermore, self-application can be smooth if you have good people skills. Regardless, many among us still have limited people skills to contact relevant people.
We encourage you to go through an education agent whether it be WEduAbroad or other agents if you need to choose between a self-application or an application through an agent. Cambodian students just don’t know what is there upfront and ahead. As a result, you are not ready for those processes. Moreover, many of you don’t have the skills required for those processes. You can be desperate and go by yourselves, but it can even be more costly and not smooth enough. You considerably see an education agent is there in the first place, which is to help you and address the problems of students who want to study overseas.
- Processes with study abroad consultancies being smoother
- Education agents having teams to check your essays for admissions
- Education consultancies having services handy such as translations
- Self-applications being smooth if Cambodian students being detail-oriented
- Self-applications being smooth when students having good people skills
- Study oversea consultancies existing to address student problems for oversea studying
What Should You Get from the Article?
In this article, Cambodians students have an opportunity to compare between self-applications and applications through an education agent to study oversea. For an answer, choosing to apply via an education agent is smarter because the application processes are more cost-saving, time-efficient and smoother than self-applications.
We encourage Cambodian students who consider applying through an education agent to seek consultancy for study abroad with us WEduAbroad for free at the 9th Floor, B-Ray Tower, Preah Norodom Blvd, Tonle Bassak Commune, Chamkamorn District, Phnom Penh (map here) or contact us via phone call 017 548 354. You can also visit our facebook at: www.facebook.com/WEduAbroad/ to take a quick look at what we have been doing so far. We are always ready to help, and we wish you and your children all the best.
Sources
[1] https://www.gooverseas.com/blog/study-abroad-prep-9-things-need-know
[2] https://studyabroad.shiksha.com/self-apply-v-s-outside-agents-articlepage-1467
