Program and University Selection

Not by ranking, but to suit your goals

Choosing a university and a specialism is not about «finding the highest spot in the rankings». You can get into a prestigious university and drop out after six months because the programme isn’t right for you. Or you can find a modest regional university that gives you practical knowledge, work while you study and a calm start to your career.

We help you select options where you will genuinely make it to graduation and get a return on your investment.

Where applicants usually start

With the QS or THE rankings. Or with advice from acquaintances: «my brother studied there — it was fine». Both approaches work, but with a large margin of error.

What matters more than the ranking:

The programme of the specific faculty. The same university can be strong in engineering and weak in business.
Whether the programme includes internships. Many Master’s programmes without practical placements leave the graduate with a diploma but no experience.
The language of instruction and the level of requirements. If your English is 6.0 and the university asks for 7.0 and offers no language year — there’s no point in applying.
The cost of living in the city. London or Munich differ from a small university town many times over in rent and transport.
Opportunities to work part-time. In some places students are allowed 20 hours a week, in others — not at all.

The difficulties of choosing on your own

There are thousands of options. In two weeks you can look through 50 websites and put together a table, but:

You won’t learn from open sources that the university cut admissions to your specialism by 40% this year due to budget changes.
You won’t see that the programme hasn’t been updated in a long time: the course descriptions on the website date from 2018, while in reality they teach the very same thing.
You won’t be able to gauge how welcoming the administration is towards international students. That only becomes clear after a couple of emails to the admissions office.

What we do

We gather your inputs: budget, desired countries, the subjects that interest you, your career goals. Without this list — there’s no way forward.
We select not just «universities that have your specialism», but those that regularly admit international students, offer deferred payment and help with accommodation.
We check programmes for how current they are: we look at the syllabuses of recent years and read reviews from real students (not only the glowing ones, but the critical ones too).
We compare the total cost: a year of tuition + living + insurance + flights + visas. Often a university with an expensive semester turns out to be more cost-effective thanks to cheap halls of residence and scholarships.
We give you a choice of 3–5 options with the clear pros and cons of each. No «they’re all great». One is cheaper, another has a more interesting programme, another is easier to get into.

An important principle

We don’t corner you into saying yes. If, after our shortlist, you decide to apply on your own — that’s your right. If you want us to help with the applications and documents — we work on that too. The main thing is that you will understand where you’re going and why.

If you don’t yet have a clear idea of which country and which specialism to apply to — get in touch with us. We’ll hold an initial consultation, ask the right questions and give you the first bearings. No filler and no pressure.