We use agents both for your benefit and for ours. Our main base of operations is in the UK, which, depending on your country may be thousands of miles away! Though we do travel to education fairs, schools and higher education institutions regularly, we realise sometimes you just want to be able to speak to someone locally and quickly.

Agents are usually based within your home country, which means they possess invaluable expertise and local knowledge about the educational landscape in your country, as well as all the information you would need on applying to a large number of education institutions across the world. This means you can make an informed decision about your future career. They are also usually highly experienced in the UK visa application process, which can be incredibly complex to navigate.

As they are within your country, they are easily accessible for you to pop into their offices for a conversation should you wish to do so. Alternatively, if you want to communicate via phone or email, you can get a response at a more convenient time as they are based in the same time zone as you.

Generally agents are paid by the university on a commission basis once you enrol. It’s important to understand this, as it may influence how they advise you.

We want you to get the best service when using an agent, so we are careful to only work with honest, competent and supportive agents.

An agent should:

• Provide you with accurate information on the University
• Be transparent about whether they are paid by the university you are applying to
• Support you in submitting a complete application
• Communicate on your behalf with the University
• Follow our Agent Code of Conduct [PDF]

An agent should not:

• Guarantee that you will receive an offer or be accepted on to a course
• Suggest that they can influence the decision to make an offer
• Charge you an application fee (it’s free to apply directly to the University of Bedfordshire)
• Provide you with immigration advice, unless they are qualified to do so

If you are looking to use an agent to help support your application to the University but are not sure if they represent us, you can find a list of authorised agents on your country’s page

You can still apply to the University of Bedfordshire using an agent that isn’t contracted to us, but it is important to check whether they have appropriate training, such as that provided by the British Council. You can find other useful guidance on using an agent on the British Council website

You can also view a full list of the agents that we work with [PDF]

We want you to get the best service when using an agent, so we are careful to only work with honest, competent and supportive agents.

If you have a negative experience with one of our representatives, please email international@beds.ac.uk in the first instance.

Please remember to include your student ID number, as well as the agent's name, company and the country they are operating in.