Students Should Succeed: Students at ISS – On the Path to Success’

The International Institute of Social Studies has a Master of Arts programme in Development Studies with more than 95% international students, coming from over 60 different nationalities. As students choose this programme very carefully, they make every effort to finish their studies successfully in 15.5 months, resulting in a high success rate. Factors that contribute toward this success are: meticulous screening of applicants, as well as the careful organisation of the programme, including measures that the Erasmus University Rotterdam, to which ISS belongs, summarizes as “Nominal is Normal”. Nevertheless, some 5% of the students do not fulfil the requirements for acquiring the degree, and some 5% succeed with only a narrow margin. As every failing student is one too many, we need to know if this could have been prevented. More specifically, we would also like to determine, if the application procedure could be improved. With our new database system, we are now able to check this, and we would like to present our results at the EAIR Forum.