Monday 28th, a study was released on the impact of counselling on the decision of students from low income backgrounds to opt for admission to more prestigious HE institutions. In a randomised controlled trial, 107 students were followed, 52 of them were offered counselling in the process of HE application and admission for the year 2006-07.
Although statistic relevance could not be proven, the researchers estimate that counselling increases the likelihood of application to more prestigious HE institutions by 7.9% points. Their statistical analysis suggests that if all counselled students would have followed through on all the counsellors advice – more than one-third did not – the counselling effect would have doubled.
Report available through kees.kouwenaar@vu.nl.