Fees, refunds and cancellations

This page says what is charged, when, and what happens when somebody changes their mind. It is deliberately short: a fee arrangement that needs three pages to explain is one that is hoping you will not finish reading.

What is free

The first conversation. The shortlist. Checking your profile against entry requirements. Preparing and submitting applications to universities that work with us. Reading the offers with you and helping you choose.

That is most of what we do, and it is free because those universities pay us when a student enrols. That arrangement is the reason the advice has to be honest about which course fits: putting somebody on the wrong course is how an office loses both the student and the university.

What is charged for

Work that is not covered by that arrangement. A university that does not work with us and has to be approached directly. A visa file prepared where the immigration position is genuinely complicated. Document translation and certification. Any of these is quoted before it starts, as a single figure rather than an hourly rate, and none of it begins before you have said yes in writing.

Third-party costs are separate and are always yours: the university’s own application fee where it charges one, the English test, the visa fee and the health surcharge, the deposit. We tell you what these are before you commit to anything, and we never add anything on top of them.

Cancelling

You can cancel a paid service within fourteen days of agreeing to it and get the whole fee back. That is the statutory position for something bought at a distance, and we apply it whether or not it strictly applies.

After fourteen days, if you cancel before the work has started you get the whole fee back. If it has started, you pay for the part that is done and we refund the rest, and the note that told you what you were buying is the measure of what that part is.

When we cannot deliver

Where we take a fee for something and then cannot do it, the fee comes back in full. That includes the case where a university closes a course, and the case where we conclude part-way through that the application should not be made.

What we cannot refund is a fee paid to somebody else - a university, a test centre, a visa office. Those have their own rules and we will tell you what they are before you pay.

A refusal is not a refund

An offer is a university’s decision and a visa is a government’s, and neither is something anybody can promise. A fee buys the work, done properly, and not an outcome. If that is not the arrangement you want, say so at the start and we will tell you honestly whether anybody can offer the other one.

How to ask for one

In writing, to the address at the foot of this page. We answer within five working days and pay within fourteen of agreeing it, by the route the money came in.