Hello everyone, I’m writing another article. Today we’re going to talk about whether you should find an agent to study in Sweden, especially why I think it’s useless to find an agent to study in Sweden.
First of all, everyone knows that the purpose of finding an agent is nothing more than to apply to a good school. But in my opinion, if the goal is a master’s program in Sweden, the agent will not have any substantial impact on the final result.
I talked to my friends about the review of applications
Recently, I founded this website and talked to my friends about the issue of study abroad agents. It happened that a friend had reviewed many master’s applications, because he was a postdoctoral fellow in a department at Lund University, and sometimes helped the supervisor to score applicants. I asked him: “Do you decide alone or together when reviewing?” He said it was a collective decision, and he just gave the applicant a score. I asked him again: “What do you mainly look at for scoring?” He replied that it mainly looks at the following points:
Course matching degree
This point was also mentioned in my previous article. As long as the school requires the courses you have studied, you must have them. If you lack them, the application will become very difficult.
Undergraduate school
I didn’t think of this before. I thought school background was not that important, but my friend told me that Sweden has a ranking list that gives corresponding scores based on the ranking of undergraduate schools. Obviously, 985 scores are higher than 211 scores, and 211 scores are higher than ordinary first-class schools.
Grades
This is what I originally thought is the most important part. No matter how many essays you write when applying for studying abroad, no matter how much you brag, it is not as real as grades.
I also asked if essays and recommendation letters are important? He said that in fact, basically no one reads them, because the Swedish essays are only more than 500 words (my major requires Max 500), which is the part in the application form. A 500-word essay is indeed not enough to determine whether a person is good or bad, and it is not as convincing as hard indicators such as grades or schools.
So, what can an agent do?
People often want to find an agent because they think that the agent can “get” a good school. But let’s compare the requirements of Swedish schools – those three points:
Undergraduate school: This is the result of your hard work in the college entrance examination and university, and the agent cannot change your graduation school;
Grade: This is accumulated over four years, and the agent cannot change your grades;
Course matching: This is the requirement of each college and has nothing to do with the agent.
The only thing an agent can help with is probably filling out forms and polishing documents. But I believe that most students’ own level is not much worse than that of the agent. Besides, my friend also mentioned that the document itself is not a core condition, at most it is icing on the cake.
Therefore, I think there is only one situation where you are suitable for finding an agent: you are too busy, like a classmate of mine, who applied after work and worked overtime until eleven or twelve every day, and had no time to prepare materials and fill out forms by himself. At this time, letting the agent take action can indeed save some trouble.
But if you want to “spend money to change your fate” because you are afraid that you will not be able to apply for a good school, I am afraid you will not get what you want. The reality is that your undergraduate school and college grades basically determine where you can go, and the rest is luck. It actually makes little difference whether you find an agent or not.
Finally, I wish you all can successfully apply to your favorite school!
