November 7, 2026 · GlobalStudyConsulting database

Test Preparation Under the Same Roof: 723 Consultancies That Also Prep You

Almost half the offices in the database bundle test preparation with consultancy. The full services league table, and when the bundle helps or hurts.

Consultancy services follow a standard stack, and the database lets us count it. Application filing appears in 1,442 offices, course counseling in 1,400, visa filing in 1,294 and university shortlisting in 1,188. Then the stack thins: scholarship guidance in 874, test preparation in 723, pre-departure briefings in 558, education loan assistance in 333, accommodation help in 265 and SOP and LOR help in 235.

Test preparation is the interesting line, because it is where the free model and the paid model meet, and because markets split sharply on it. In India, 398 of 467 offices offer test preparation, and in China 201 of 251 do. In Australia, only 2 of 145 offices list it, because coaching there is a separate industry. Coaching for IELTS, TOEFL, GRE, SAT or PTE is usually the paid layer of an otherwise free service, sold as a course with its own timetable and its own teachers.

The bundle has real advantages: one office knows your target universities, so your test target score is set by your shortlist, not by a generic band goal. It also has a real risk: a coaching-first business may steer your shortlist toward what fills its classrooms. The check is simple. Ask whether the office will file applications to universities where you need no coaching, and watch whether the destination advice changes.

The services table is also a buyer's checklist. If an office offers filing and visas but no loan assistance and no accommodation help, you will assemble those pieces yourself. Neither shape is wrong. Knowing the shape before the first meeting is the whole point of counting.

Reading the thin end of the stack

The least common services are the most revealing. SOP and LOR help appears in only 235 offices and accommodation help in 265, yet these are the two services students most often discover they need late. Education loan assistance, at 333 offices, clusters in India, where loan-backed applications are a standard route; offices without it will send you to a bank partner or leave the financing entirely to you.

None of this makes a full-stack office automatically better. A lean office that counsels and files superbly, then hands you a trusted coaching partner, can beat a bundle that does everything adequately. What the counts give you is a map of what to ask about. Print the services table, take it to your first meetings, and mark which parts of your application each office will own. Gaps found in week one are cheap. Gaps found in month six are not.

Data: the GlobalStudyConsulting database of 1,506 consultancy offices in 384 cities, collected from consultancies' own websites and verified November 7, 2026. Try the Agency Fit Finder or browse consultancies by city.