The last week decides the first month.

By the time a visa is granted, the agency's attention has usually moved to the next file. The student, meanwhile, is about to do the hardest part: travel alone to a country they have never visited, arrive tired, and make a series of decisions in their second language within seventy-two hours. A structured pre-departure briefing is the cheapest service improvement most agencies can make, and it is almost entirely reusable between students.

Documents to carry, not to pack.

Hand luggage, in one folder, plus a copy stored somewhere the student can reach from a phone with no local connection.

• Passport with the visa, and the immigration documents the destination requires on entry.
• The offer or enrolment confirmation, and the fee receipts.
• Accommodation address and booking confirmation, and the name of a contact there.
• Insurance or health cover documents.
• Academic documents — original transcripts and certificates, which some institutions inspect at enrolment.
• Enough local currency for the first two days, on the assumption that no card works and no application can be downloaded.

Arrival and the first seventy-two hours.

Walk through it in order, out loud, with the student. Which airport, which terminal, what the immigration queue looks like, what they will be asked, what they should have in their hand. How they get from the airport to the accommodation, with the actual cost and an actual second option. Where the keys are and who has them if they arrive outside office hours.

Then the first three days: registration or enrolment, any immigration formality required after arrival, opening a bank account and what it needs, connecting a phone, and where to buy food that first evening. Written down, in the counselling language.

Money, said plainly.

What their first month will actually cost, itemised: rent and deposit, food, transport, course materials, phone. How to move money internationally and what it costs, because the family will use whatever is familiar and it is usually expensive. What the account they open can and cannot do in the first weeks. Whether their visa allows work, how many hours, and what the consequences are of exceeding it — this last one should be in writing, because it is the mistake with the most severe consequences and it is nearly always made in ignorance.

Health, safety and the awkward parts.

How to register with a doctor and what it costs to see one. What their health cover includes and excludes. Emergency numbers. What to do if they lose their passport. Where the institution's own support services are, including counselling, because homesickness in month two is normal, common, and something students hide.

Say all of this before departure. A student in difficulty in October does not go looking for advice they were never given.

Culture without the clichés.

Skip the generalisations about the destination. Cover the specific things that trip students up: how classes are run and whether attendance is monitored, what academic integrity means at that institution and what the penalties are, how to contact a lecturer, what is expected in group work, and how tipping and queueing work. Practical, small, and immediately useful.

Brief the family, not only the student.

Run part of the session with whoever is paying and whoever will worry. They need the arrival plan, the first month's budget, the accommodation address and a realistic account of how often they will hear from the student in the first fortnight. Families who are briefed stop calling your office for reassurance at midnight, which is a service improvement for everybody, and they are the people who recommend you to the next family in their street.

Keep in contact for eight weeks.

One message on arrival, one after a week, one after a month. It costs almost nothing and it produces two things: students who recommend you to their cousins, and the honest post-arrival feedback that tells you whether the institution you recommended is as good as you have been telling families it is.