Before recommending a school to a student, a consulting agency is putting its own credibility on the line. If the school turns out not to be as described, you are the one who bears the immediate fallout, not the school.
That is why vetting a school’s source is not an administrative formality. It is a way of protecting yourself.
Five things to check before advising
Legal standing and the right to enroll international students. Being a licensed institution is one thing; being authorized to admit international students and issue documents for visa purposes is another. The two do not always go together.
Accreditation of the specific program. Accreditation is usually tied to individual programs or faculties, not the entire school. A well-accredited school can still have a new program that has not yet been recognized.
Tuition and associated fees, by academic year. The published figure is usually the first-year tuition. You need to know the annual increase rate, mandatory fees beyond tuition, and the refund conditions if a student does not enroll.
Actual entry requirements. Published requirements and actual requirements can differ, particularly for language. Ask directly what score range applications tend to get accepted at.
Who you are actually working with. Whether your contact is staff of the school itself, of a representative office, or of another intermediary. This determines how much you can trust the information you receive.
Which sources to trust
Order of priority: the host country’s education regulator, the school’s official website, and only then materials provided by an intermediary.
For every important piece of information, record the source and the date it was checked. Tuition and entry requirements change from year to year, and a document without a date leaves no way to know if it is still accurate.
Warning signs
Commission rates unusually high compared to the norm. Pressure to close quickly paired with short-lived promotions. Inability to provide written confirmation of the partnership. And tuition information that only exists in sales materials, not on the official website.
A single warning sign does not mean much on its own. Two or three appearing together is reason to stop and verify.
How to keep a vetting record
One table per school, with columns for: information source, date checked, who checked it, and notes on points to watch. This table takes about an hour for the first school and much less for the ones after.
Its value shows up when a dispute arises: you can prove what information you based your advice on, and when.
When using school data from a platform
If you pull a school profile from an intermediary platform, two questions need answers: what criteria does the platform use to vet it, and what date does the profile show for its last verification.
A platform does not take on your responsibility to the student in your place. It only saves you from starting from zero for every school.
Next Steps
If you are expanding your school portfolio, a thirty-minute session can review your current vetting process and fill in what’s missing.
