The Friday Mindset - Issue #45

Hello and happy Friday!

The Easter break is with us soon and we, like you, will be getting a well-earned rest but there's a ton of important and interesting stuff we have to share before then, so let's jump in.

Something to try...

OK, now is a good time to talk university retention. Steve's work at MMU has brought him up-close with this issue, but during the last fortnight's training sessions, Martin's discussions with staff have kept returning to the damage unconditional offers can often do to year 13 students' habits.

Particularly this year 13. We've got a serious university retention crisis waiting to happen next year if we don't step in... and you don't need a tedious recap of why.

It's time to explore the whole issue with them.

We've put together a short, simple powerpoint for you, all based on HESA's retention data. We show you the retention rate for students in year one (bottom line, UK universities lose about 8% of students), the retention rate of students in year two (bottom line, UK universities lose a further 10-12% - a generous estimation) and then the percentage of those remaining who are awarded a degree. Before you check the powerpoint, have a guess. Go on. 8% go in year one, 12(ish)% in year two. Of the remainder, how many get a degree? (Spoiler alert: it's a bit of a shocker.)

Then we give you the cost of dropping out, term by term, so students know what's on the line. After that, an exploration of a paper we recommended you read back in issue 15 - the Van Herpen study from the University of Rotterdam exploring which factors most-accurately predict university drop-out.

The result? It's pre-university levels of effort that most strongly predict whether you're about to waste huge amounts of money or not. Students need to know this but crucially parents need to know this too. Dive in. Share.

A short powerpoint: pre-university effort and drop-out rates

Something we've been reading/listening to...

Think Student has come in useful these past few weeks. We expect you're already on it but if you're not, check it out:

Thousands of students apply to universities every year. But how do they decide exactly which ones to apply to? What makes a particular university the ‘best’ university? There are many factors that may contribute to a university being placed on this list. …

Also, we've been exploring Cal Newport's podcast, Deep Questions, and his associated Youtube channel.

This short talk, titled Is Ambition worth it? is fascinating,

This talk is a summary of his Don't Follow Your Passion position which we've referenced before, and...

There are plenty of others too, check it out.

Our latest offer...

It's the VESPA Q&A. Ask anything! Wednesday 20th April, 3:45-4:45pm.

Remember you can either:

(i) bring questions with you or

(ii) email them through in advance so we’ve got the best possible answer ready for you.

The address to say hello is [email protected] - if you’d like to come along, drop us a line and we’ll forward you the zoom link. We’d like to keep it relatively small so we can listen to each other’s questions and have a useful discussion so first come, first served!

Alrighty that's us done for the week. Have a great weekend, enjoy some sunshine (we hope...) and take solace in the arrival of the daffodils.

We're off to quaff over-priced beer from novelty glasses.

Steve and Martin

p.s. we're thinking of putting on a training day this Summer. Last December's day was great but we had to limit attendance because of Covid rules at the time. Would anyone be interested in a training day run either in London or Manchester sometime in June/July? Please do let us know if so. Just hit the 'thumbs up' icon at the bottom of the page and we'll do a count. Cheers!