How to choose a consultancy for an MS in Germany
What a consultancy can and cannot do for a German Master's application, the six questions worth asking before you pay, and where we fit.
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What a consultancy actually does, and what it cannot do
Start here, because the honest version of this saves people a lot of money.
A German Master’s application is not a persuasion exercise. It is a verification exercise. German universities check whether your degree is recognised, whether you have the credits, whether your language score clears the bar, and whether your documents are genuine. Most public universities do not interview you and do not weigh a personal story against a rulebook.
What a good consultancy really does is remove the ways this goes wrong: picking programs you actually qualify for instead of ones you like the sound of, starting APS early enough, getting documents into the exact format uni-assist wants, and keeping track of deadlines that are spread across eleven months of the year.
What no consultancy can do is change the rules. Nobody can get a program to accept 180 ECTS when it asks for 210. Nobody has a contact inside a public university’s admissions office. Nobody can speed up the German mission’s visa processing. If someone tells you they can, that is the moment to leave.
This matters for the price you should be willing to pay. You are buying accuracy and time, not access. And a lot of the accuracy is free: the deadline for every program is public, the requirements are public, and anabin is public.
The six questions worth asking before you pay
Ask these on the first call. Each has a right answer and a wrong one, and each is checkable while you are still on the phone.
1. Who pays you
Some firms are paid by you. Some are paid a commission by universities when you enrol. Some are paid by both. There is nothing illegal about commission, but it changes what you get shown. A counsellor paid by three private universities will find a reason your profile suits those three. Ask directly, and ask whether the fee changes depending on where you enrol.
2. Can you name five programs I qualify for, right now
A firm that knows German admissions can name specific programs, with the deadline and the credit requirement, in the first conversation. A firm that only talks about "top universities" and "great scope in Germany" has not looked at your transcript. This one question separates the two faster than anything else.
3. Do you handle APS, and when do you start it
APS is the longest step for Indian applicants and 1,148 of the 2,655 Master’s programs in our catalogue require the certificate at the point of application. If a consultancy treats APS as a later step, their timeline is already broken. Ask what month they would start it for your intake.
4. What happens if I get no admits
Ask for the answer in writing, before payment. Some packages include a refund, some include a second intake, most include neither. Any of those can be fair. Not knowing which one you bought is not.
5. Is the fee one payment, and what is not included
The common surprise is not the counselling fee. It is everything bolted on afterwards: document writing, visa help, blocked account, insurance, courier. Ask for the full list of paid items before you sign, not the headline number.
6. What do you give away free
A firm confident in its paid work publishes the free version too. If nothing useful is public, the paid product is usually the information itself, and information about German admissions is not scarce.
How the money works in this industry
Two models pay for education consulting in India, and knowing which one you are dealing with explains almost everything about the advice you get.
| Model | Who pays | What it changes for you |
|---|---|---|
| Student-paid | You, once | The firm has no reason to prefer one university over another. Their only measure of success is your admit. |
| Commission | The university, when you enrol | Only universities that pay commission appear on your list. In Germany that means mostly private universities, because public ones generally do not pay agents. |
| Both | You and the university | Fine if disclosed. Ask which universities on your list pay them, and compare that list against a search you run yourself. |
This is the single most useful thing to understand about German applications specifically. 1,694 of the 2,655 Master’s programs in our catalogue charge no tuition, and every single one of those is at a public university. Public universities are also the ones least likely to pay a commission. So a purely commission-funded counsellor has a structural reason to steer you toward the fee-charging option. That is not a conspiracy, it is just how the incentive points.
You can test this in ten minutes. Take the list a consultancy gives you, open our free course catalogue, and check how many of their suggestions are public and free against how many are private and paid. If the ratio looks nothing like the catalogue’s, ask why.
Where MS in Germany fits, honestly
We are one option among several, and we are not right for everyone. Here is the accurate version so you can judge it against anyone else.
What we are
MS in Germany started in 2016 as one TU Munich graduate’s notebook and is now a platform for applying to a German Master’s. Per our about page, more than 5,000 students have used it. We are operated by Qogent Learning Solutions Private Limited, an Indian company, so you are paying an Indian entity under Indian consumer law.
What is free, and stays free
- The full catalogue: 2,655 active Master’s programs across 232 universities, with real deadlines, credit requirements, language scores and tuition. Search it at /courses.
- 18 tools, including the APS eligibility quiz, the ECTS credit calculator and the blocked account calculator.
- A free profile evaluation, where we tell you which programs you qualify for today. There is no payment step in it.
- Every guide on this site, including the ones that tell you when you do not need us.
What is paid, and what it costs
Prices are published on our pricing page and shown in INR, EUR or USD. As of 27 July 2026: Basic at EUR 339 covers up to 3 university applications with document support. Standard at EUR 559 covers up to 10 applications plus APS guidance. Premium at EUR 1,399 covers unlimited applications across two intakes and carries an admission guarantee with a stated refund if you receive no admits. Individual services, such as SOP review or visa document work, are sold separately and each price is listed.
We also earn a referral fee on some visa-stack signups, for example blocked accounts and health insurance. That is stated on the services page next to each one, because you should be able to see it before you click.
When you should not pay us
If you are applying to three or four public universities, your degree is clearly recognised in anabin, you have your language score, and you are comfortable reading official pages, you do not need a package. Use the free catalogue and the free tools and keep your money. The paid work earns its price when the timeline is tight, the credit situation is unclear, or you are applying to ten or more programs and the document load becomes the actual problem.
That is the whole pitch. No rankings, no promises about visas, no numbers you cannot check on this site in the next five minutes.
Frequently asked questions
Start with the free version
Send us your degree, grades and target intake. We will tell you which programs you qualify for today, with no payment step in the way.