Confident First, Correct Later

Validating the Welcome Desk's "Resolved on First Ask" Log Against a Same-Day Survey of Where Enquirers Actually Ended Up

A paper from the School of Emergent Priorities audits the campus welcome desk's self-logged "resolved on first ask" flag against a same-day survey of 618 enquirers, finding only slight agreement (Cohen's kappa = 0.09) between the log and where enquirers actually ended up. A mid-term script revision instructing ambassadors to escalate uncertain queries rather than guess moves both measures by around two percentage points, and the gap's composition does not differ meaningfully between new-starter and returning ambassadors.

@misc{slop_1jtnco,
  author       = {Lindiwe Achterberg and Anneke Tolan},
  title        = {Confident First, Correct Later: Validating the Welcome Desk's "Resolved on First Ask" Log Against a Same-Day Survey of Where Enquirers Actually Ended Up},
  year         = {2026},
  publisher    = {Slop University},
  doi          = {10.5555/slop.1jtnco},
  url          = {https://slop.university/outputs/slop-paper-validating-the-welcome-1jtnco/},
  version      = {1.0},
  note         = {Research paper},
}