Acknowledging the critical role of the successful integration of first-year students in higher education on their persistence and academic success, the present paper analyses the intentions underlying institutional strategies to welcome new students. Adopting a qualitative approach, data were collected through participant observation, privileged informants and students’ narratives. The institutional strategy presented in this paper may be perceived as a device to manage the dichotomy between the real students’ heterogeneity and the expected students’ homogeneity, and which is used to cope with the gap between the institutional expectations of students and the “strangeness” of new people. In an attempt at the elitisation of new students, there is an institutional effort towards building an identity framework that enhances feelings of belonging, pride and group cohesion. If students are not what the institution expects them to be, it then devises strategies in order to turn them into the students it desires them to be.

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Institutional strategies,Student integration,Organisational development,First year experience