Some people may know, some people may not. I was thankfully advised from my friend who had been to Canada when I decided on school. It's not rare to see students who would want to change schools because their school or curriculum they chose does not meet thier expectations, or is different from what they had thought would be like before they left Korea, but they just have to bite the bullet and keep studying there because of panelty.

ah i see. thanks for the tip! :D do most people know that their recommendations are biased?

Hi, Eddy. We call the agencies 유학원 in Korean, and it would be better to say '-을 통해서' for 'by going through'. The good thing about going agencies is it's convenient because they deal with almost everything as you've mentioned- school, visa, housing, airplane tickets, insurances and what not. So it's like one-stop shopping. However, you should be more careful about choosing a school because agencies are paid on commission from schools, so they will recommand ones that they can make more money from. You should know what you really want from your school, what you expect from the course of your choosing rather than make your decision based on the biased recommandation.