Freshmen advising

Parents Forum
1

<p>I'd be very curious to hear about freshmen advising programs at the schools CC parents' children attend (students are welcome to reply as well!). </p>

<p>Specifically, I'd like to know:</p>

<p>Name of school
1. what type of advising was offered to your child? how was a freshman advisor assigned? who was your child's freshman advisor (i.e., a general faculty member or someone from the major department or someone else?) Was advising done individually, as a group or some combination? Did the advisor keep in touch with your child in some way during the first semester (either at the child's prompting or the advisor's)?
2. Did your child need to get his/her advisor's approval before registering for classes?
3. how satisfied was your child with the advising he/she received freshman year? Did your child take full advantage of advising options?
4. what questions should prospective students/parents ask colleges about their freshman advising programs before choosing a school?</p>

<p>Thanks everyone!</p>

2

<p>My son is a freshman at Grinnell. As is true at many LAC's we visited, his advisor this year is also the professior for his freshman seminar, which my son had selected over the summer. My son sees him twice per week in the seminar. He has also visited his advisor's home at least once. His advisor approved his first and second semester's schedule. The advisor is not in his area of intended major, but this is not an issue. </p>

<p>I met his advisor during the parent orientation. He had not yet met my son, but he had clearly read his admissions file and knew quite a lot about my son. I took this as a sign of genuine interest and all evidence suggests that the advisor likes this aspect of his involvement with students and also takes it very seriously.</p>

<p>As an aside, in college I worked for 2 years in the section of the dean for student affairs office that was responsible for freshman. Among our responsibilities was the matching of advisors and advisees. We solicited input from each as to attributes, interests,etc. We had an advisor who formed a high quality string quintet from his advisees. Another memorable student request was for an advisor who didn't care if the student didn't bathe often...hmm.</p>

<p>The one element missing from my son's advising program that I might like to see would be an adjunct advisor who is a student. While a great deal of advising takes place through the RA and dorm programs, I think an upperclass student offers a lot in the academic advising domain...</p>

<p>We regularly asked about advising programs during tours and heard about many permutations and variations on this basic theme. All seemed valid as it pertained to the specific school. I do like the idea of regular contact through class meeting, particularly if the class is of high interest to the student.</p>

3

<p>My daughter is a freshman at Dartmouth had 4 advisors this year: </p>

<p>My daughter applied to and lives in the East Wheelock clusters. The goal of the East Wheelock cluster is to provide a unique living arrangement is to ensure that the academic and social transition from high school to college occurs in ways that permit first-year students to take advantage of the College's academic resources and faculty .The First-year Dean who also teaches in the Psychology and Brain Sciences department, provides academic and personal advising as the cluster dean. There is a Community Director who assists the Faculty Associates and the Dean in designing residential life programs and supervises the undergraduate advisors (student peer advisors) and the Cluster Council. During orientation, each student at EW met with the dean. After midterms, if your child is having any problems in class or transitioning freshman year, this is the dean who contacts you.</p>

<p>This year Dartmouth's Student Assembly launched its first Peer Academic Advising program. The meetings were not mandatory for the freshmen, but approximately 80 to 90 percent of freshman attended. Peer academic advisers prepared freshmen for their faculty adviser meetings, assisted them in making schedule decisions and helped alleviate some of their fears. 164 upperclassman advisers were broken down into groups of three so that one in each group specialized in the social sciences, math and sciences and arts and humanities, respectively. The teams counseled two groups of 10 freshmen in one-hour sessions.</p>

<p>Daughter was also assigned a general advisor who is faculty member whom she meet at the beginning of the term to discuss her fall schedules and other pertinent academic decisions. She had to get the approval of this advisor before registering for classes. For the second term she met with the advisor again to with her prospective schedule for the rest of the year. </p>

<p>Because her interest lies in pre-med, she also has a pre-med advisor whom she also had for Bio this year. The advisor assisted her with planning out her pre-med courses.</p>

<p>We talk constantly about how this is a new experience for her and that it is not a sign of weakness to ask for help if you needed because no one gives you extra points for suffering in silence and in the end you are not out there alone.</p>

4

<p>Thanks Robrym and Sybbie. It sounds like both Dartmouth and Grinnell do a nice job with freshman advising. I am curious to hear from others about how they compare. And, if you have any suggestions for questions we should ask when visiting colleges about this subject, I'd appreciate hearing them. My main concern is how you can really get at the meat of whether it's a decent freshman advising program at a particular school.</p>

5

<p>Does your daughter have any friends/associates who are currently attending any of the schools that she is interested in , as they can give her first hand knowledge of the good, bad and ugly of freshman advising. I think we have been fortunate as no news is good news. I am also one of those parents who has copies of the catalogs and has read it thouroghly because of my own experiences as an undergrad at a public school where it seems that only the squeaky wheel gets the grease.</p>

<p>I think that the more things change, the more they remain the same, and college hasn't changed that radically and our kids will still want to bounce their choices off of us. </p>

<p>Dartmouth also has student evalutations of courses and professors that the students an access on line so that they can read other's opinions on a particular class or professor.</p>

6

<p>Mine has so many, it is hard to know where to start! Her first-year advisor is the prof who heads the 5-College Opera Consortium, and met her last year (and arranged her research placement.) She is the one who does the course selection thing with her, and signs off on classes (and did some really good "matching" of my d. with profs whom she would likely never have discovered on her own.) Her research advisor (she has a paid research assistantship) is a Five-College Professor based at Mt. Holyoke (who is also helping her find a summer internship.) Her composition prof. acts as an advisor as well (he supervised the placement tests and placement.) Then there is an advisor for the research scholars generally speaking (they hold teas, and research presentations, and meet with students to make sure the research placement is going well.) Then there is an advisor attached to students doing languages in preparation for JYA. Then each house has a resident advisor (a senior), and two "Heads of New Students", all three of whom can be called upon for academic advising. I usually can't keep them all straight.</p>

<p>Student evaluations of courses/profs is REQUIRED - there is actually a fine for not doing them.</p>

7

<p>Sybbie - Unfortunately, most of the schools she is interested in are not ones that students from her school typically apply to --- but I do know they all have livejournals for current students so she could ask there perhaps. Thanks for the idea. </p>

<p>Mini, I told TheDad yesterday that I want to be reincarnated and go to Smith.</p>

<p>How about parents of students at larger schools and universities? I'd like to hear about advising programs at those type of schools as well.</p>

8

<p>Carolyn,</p>

<p>From what I have seen, Duke has a very good approach to freshmen advising. Each student is required to complete a very extensive interest survey during the summer prior to entering the campus in the fall. These surveys are submitted by a certain date and reviewed, and each student is assigned a "pre-major" advisor. This "pre-major" advisor is typically an instructor in an area in which the student has expressed an interest. (In the case of my son, the advisor also has similar non-academic interests). My understanding is that the student meets with this advisor prior to registering for their courses each semester as a freshman and sophomore, and whenever else they have questions. The student puts together a list of courses (with alternates) and reviews the list with the "pre-major" advisor prior to final registration. From what my son has said, his "pre-major" advisor has been very helpful in "guiding" his course decisions without actually telling him which courses to take, or what path to follow. It sounds like the "pre-major" advisor has really taken the time to understand my son's personality and interests, and has encouraged him to pursue those interests without getting too bogged down with deciding his entire life's plan as a college freshman. Students are actually encouraged to experiment with different types of classes, and are actually encouraged to take a variety of classes based on the core curriculum requirements. The students do not have to declare a major until the end of sophomore year. Once they have decided upon a major, they are then assigned to a major (departmental) advisor.</p>

9

<p>Sokkermom, Duke sounds like it has a good program too.</p>

<p>So, OK, any freshman advising horror stories? And keep the good ones coming too. They are very interesting.</p>

10

<p>Carolyn,
At Brown, I believe there are a few advising options/programs. My D chose over the summer before freshman year the most popular one I believe. This program, called Cap Courses, involves choosing from an array of courses (are not freshman courses per se) that have been designated "Cap Courses" which means that if you opt for one of these courses via the Cap program as a freshman, then the professor of that course will be your advisor. That does not mean everyone in the course has this prof. as an advisor, far from it. But freshman who register for the course over the summer through the Cap program do have that person as their advisor. This is not a course necessarily related to any intended major. For instance, the Cap course my D ended up choosing/getting into relates to theater which is not her intended major though she is interested in that subject as one of many interests. The course itself happens to be a spring semester course. Ironically, now that my D has registered for spring semester courses, she ended up cutting this course out because she has some others she wanted to take more (that are not Cap Courses) which is fine. </p>

<p>Anyway, the advisor met with her during freshman orientation. The professor advises her about her course selections and anything related. She met with him again during fall regarding spring course selections. She could meet with him more if she so chose. Obviously if she had taken the course this spring, she would be seeing him a couple times per week (which is the idea behind that advising program). </p>

<p>In ADDITION to her faculty advisor, she is assigned what is called a Miekklejohn advisor which is an upperclass (in her case, a senior) peer advisor. This advisor, I think ,has five freshman advisees. She met with these freshmen during orientation and at other times. She happens to be a theater major and I am not sure if that is coincidence (as is the professor) or not. My D is not a theater major and the assignment of the Miekklejohn is unrelated to intended major. She has gotten together with her. This senior does advising offering the student perspective which complements the faculty perspective. Just as aside, my D's peer advisor, upon meeting my D, and my D telling her that her sister is involved in theater, had heard of her sister, which was odd given different states and all. So, as far as academic advising, there is a professor and a peer advisor. There are a couple other advising options at Brown. I could say the same at Tufts....where a few options/programs exist. </p>

<p>When a student declares a major, she gets an advisor in her academic area. </p>

<p>To sum, the professor gave individual advising and the peer advisor I think gave both individual and small group (five advisees) advising. I can't answer if the advisor kept in touch or not but I know my D can meet up with him whenever she likes. She may have met with him twice over her spring selections. She has not noted any problems, that is all I know. As far as approval before registering, I would say, yes, I think the advisor had to "sign off" on the course selections but again, there was much choice involved. I think the advisor helps the student make sure they are making appropriate choices and exploring a breadth of courses. I recall back in Sept. during orientation, she said her advisor advised her to not take all large sized classes and to have some that were small, which is excellent advice. That is the sort of thing they help with. As far as how satisfied my child is with her advising, while I never point blank asked her this question, my gut feeling from any time anything related came up in conversation is that she is pleased with whatever advice she was given and the ease of meeting with any of these folks. My D happens to be a happy camper at her college and so I can only give you one person's perspective. </p>

<p>My suggestions to you is on campus visits, try to ascertain the freshman advising programs. Sometimes these are explained. Sometimes more about this topic is explained at the April Open House events for accepted students where there are many panel discussions on all facets of that college and this is often one of the topics for such meetings for parents at that time. Also, as with any aspect of a college, when visiting, try to meet with current students impromptu and ask any questions about any facet of the college including this one. At every college, my kids met with many students and asked questions. These are not like the tour guides championing the school. </p>

<p>Susan</p>

11

<p>Swarthmore has two advising systems -- official and unofficial.</p>

<p>The official advising system is pretty much like anywhere else. Each freshman is assigned a faculty advisor. My kid, female and having expressed an interest in science, was assigned a female faculty member from the Physics department, so I would assume there is some attempt to match interests. The second prong of the official system is that each freshmen is assigned a Student Acadademic Mentor (SAM). This is an upperclassman who is available to the freshman throughout the year. I know that my daughter did meet with hers, although the degree to which various kids take advantage of this part of the system varies.</p>

<p>The "unofficial" part of the advising system is a direct result of Swarthmore's housing policy: freshmen are assigned to upperclass dorms. In addition to the RAs on her floor, all of the singles in her dorm are occupied by juniors and seniors. Thus, she has had the opportunity, in the normal course of social interaction (living in the next room, sharing a bathroom), to make friends with a number of Swarthmore upperclassmen. The seniors (from several different majors) have spent time with my daughter, giving them the "insiders", "real-world" view: what a major in that department is like, what each of the courses in this department entails (a butt-kicker, not too tough, etc.), and information about the professors to seek out and those to avoid (the real key to college course selection, IMO). </p>

<p>I think this "informal" advising system has probably been the most valuable in helping my daughter work through some decisions about potential majors.</p>

<p>An example. One senior major in a social sciences department pointed out to her that very few of the majors continue their upper level math far enough, which hampers them when so much of the social science world today involves statistical analysis and so many of the entry level career paths involve employers looking for statistical analysis grunt work. He specficially pointed out two or three of the mid-level math courses that would be valuable to a social science major -- basically the first four semesters of the the math major track. He even went so far as to look at who is teaching each of those four courses over the next two years and recommending a shuffling of the order to get (and avoid) certain profs in the rotation. My daughter has had similar informal sessions with senior majors in at least three departments.</p>

12

<p>My son attends Lewis and Clark. They try to assign an advisior who will also be teaching that student in class first semester. Students are given a registration packet in June. They are automatically given a liberal studies class called Inventing America. (They can request a specific IA section or wait and be assigned.) They also need to choose one other class. If they have a major in mind, they are asked to take a class in that major. In my son's case, he wants to major in biology so he signed up for the intro bio class for majors. When they arrive on campus in August, they choose the rest of their classes with the help of their advisors. Advisors are usually the teacher of the class they chose or their IA teacher. My son's advisor is his bio teacher. He sees him 4 times a week in class. The advisor also got together with his freshmen a couple of times for socializing and has met with them all for planning 2nd semester classes. They have to have advisor approval for their 2nd semester classes. He has no complaints and I don't have any suggestions for ways they could improve the process. I think they did a great job.</p>

13

<p>My son is at Bucknell. You are assigned an advisor right away based on your declared interests and the freshman seminars you ranked. You must enroll in one, and they are all taught by freshman advisors. (12 per class or so) It worked out that my son had his seminar first semester, so he has seen his advisor twice a week all semester. He has also talked to him privately about selecting next semester's classes. He doesn't need approval but they do suggest you talk with your advisor. Your first semester classes are picked from groupsof core classes, you rank within the seminars, lab sciences etc...so that you at least have a balance.</p>

<p>My son likes his advisor a lot, so much so that he will be taking an upper level class from him next semester. The advisor focused our son, suggested some major options and classes to complete it. I am glad he had a lot of contact first semester, and the advisor had the added benefit of seeing if our son would be happy/do well/be able to complete a major in his department.</p>

<p>As for asking, I would always like to know what kind of access my child will have to an advisor during all four years. What do they do if you are undeclared for two, and what to they do after you declare. Also, if your child switches focus areas during that time period in the beginning where a lot of kids are undelcared and not tied ot a particular department...is there someone to consult with regards to completing core requirements and how much access to that person is available.</p>

<p>I think I saw my advisor about three times at UVa, and all after the junior year. I could have used more direction.</p>

14

<p>Penn student (CAS) responding here - I had a really positive freshman advising experience but I would say that the system overall is a little bit hit or miss.
As far as I can determine there's not a great deal of effoert put into matching students/advisors, and the systems seem to vary across the undergraduate schools. In the College, you get assigned an advisor in the summer before you arrive. This could be a faculty member or a trained grad student. My advisor was a grad student who lived in my dorm, other friends had "multicultural" advisors or Honors program advisors. I had to get my course selections approved before I was able to register for any classes. Living overseas, there was no way I could meet with my advisor or talk extensively on the phone, so I was pretty much left to my own devices with initial selections, and then had another meeting during Freshman Orientation. I did have an "advising group" but we never really did anything as a group after orientation.
I was expected to meet with my advisor once or twice a semester until declaring a major. He would contact me to set up an appointment, but I was always free to contact him at other times too. I always had a pretty good idea of what I was doing so I never needed that much advice on course selection. However, my advisor was really helpful in other areas - he sorted out my financial aid problem for me, and helped me deal with a missed exam, let me borrow his cats for stress relief, found out about summer research opportunities for me. Like I said, I think I just got lucky to be assigned to someone with lots of connections around campus, and who knew people in the field that I'm interested in.
We also have a peer advising system - my peer advisor also lived in my dorm, and was there to rpovide advice or help if we needed it. I didn't really need it, so we never interacted that much, but she did send e-mails several times during the semester to our group, keeping us updated on things we should be doing and offering tips on course selection and so on.
Another option that's always available is a walk-in/appointment with a "professional" advisor in the College office - I've done this on a couple of occasions but it's not always helpful (EG - Because I missed an exam due to illness, one that I was relying on to boost my grade, I went to the College office (with my professor's approval) to try and petition to change my grade to pass/fail, and was told in no uncertain terms that I could put in an appeal if I wanted, but there was no chance of it getting approved.) Just recently I was assigned an Upperclassmen advisor in the College office, to help out with non-major classes if needed, but as yet I haven't needed to contact them.
My freshman dorm was also a generally supportive environment - one of the smaller dorms on campus and there were no RAs, only Graduate Associates, so plenty of people to ask for more informal advice.
After declaring a major, each department sets its own policies, some will assign you a new advisor and require you to meet with them before registering for class, others are more relaxed - there are people available but you're not required to go and speak to them.
As I said, each division is different - my room mates in Wharton had no official advisors, and the onus was always on them to set up an appointment with the advising office.
Overall I had a pretty positive advising experience freshman year. I haven't really taken full advantage of advising options available, but at the same time I haven't really needed to - I haven't really had a lot of class-related problems. Mostly I would meet with my advisor and he would offer me advice on non-academic issues. It is kind of a hit or miss system though, and I expect it's as easy to slip through the cracks if you're struggling as it is if you're succeeding. This is definitely something that Penn is conscious of, and they're often trying out new things to combat it, but I think it's just one of the potential pitfalls of attending a large university.</p>

15

<p>Thanks everyone - these are great examples. Keep them coming! Shennie - it was reading about Lewis & Clark's advising program that made me think about this subject and wonder how other schools do it. By the way, we will be visiting L&C in January and I may have some questions for you afterwards if that is OK.</p>

16

<p>Well, everything you've heard about Columbia advising is true. Unfortunately. First and second year students are assigned deans who are each responsible for hundreds of students. My son, at my insistance, saw his during orientation and said it was a waste of time, but that may also be because he got so much information from the university ahead of time that there wasn't a lot for the advisor to suggest at that point. Once he chooses his major, he'll be assigned a professor as a departmental advisor. If it's astrophysics, great, the ratio is about two professors per student. If it's economics...</p>

<p>The upside is this: there is plentiful and detailed information on the websites, especially departmental ones, as well as an extremely useful online student evaluation of professors. I have to admit, this year I'm the one who frequently passes on the basic information (for example, that he can take an introductory economics class pass/not pass, even if he eventually decides to major in economics) while he scopes out the professors. He is on track with virutally all options intact -- the key item being that he has taken enough math and science this year that he can go on in those if he chooses. But he will soon hit a fork in the road, at which point I hope he'll go to the undergraduate advisors for some of the departments he's considering as majors. One of the classes he's taking next semester is a one unit seminar on current research in astronomy and physics -- intended to help students make a decision of whether to go on in the field or not. He will certainly meet some of the faculty through that, when they come in to talk about their work.</p>

<p>More upside: he's had absolutely no trouble getting the classes he wants. he's had great professors. he loves it. we knew in advance that advising was not going to be the university's strong suit. you actually can graduate Columbia without a major. given the core curriculum, whatever he does choose, he'll come out with a solid education.</p>

17

<p>To somewhat second Sac, yeah, advising is not Columbia's strong suit. My S had a slightly different experience, but same ending. They have a firstyear/soph advising center, and he was assigned an advisor from that over the summer. He emailed back and forth with her (at my insistence)about what he should think about taking in the fall. He met with her during Orientation to finalize choices, and he found her helpful, though he (with my input) basically made his own choices. Then apparently at some point during the semester, he ignored an email to make an advising appointment, and missed a deadline. I suggested he show up and try to talk to someone anyway, but he prefered to forge ahead on his own, and, again with some input from me, chose a schedule and registered on his own--no oversight is necessary. He had no trouble getting what he wanted, except he doesn't like the time for his Spanish class (10 is too early???)</p>

<p>Anyway, he doesn't seem to mind this--I think the advising is there for pro-active students who seek it out, but mr. last-minute seems to be operating at his own speed, and succeeding so far...</p>

<p>Advisng definitely is not C's strong point (Elleneast had warned me of that last year) but as long as he's progressing and happy, I'm happy.</p>

18

<ol>
<li><p>Harvard - freshmen are advised by their "Proctors", which are sort of a combination between an academic advisor and a dorm RA. They are faculty members that live right there in the freshman dorms and are responsible for all aspects of the welfare of the students under their charge. I wasn't there when it happened, but I think the course advising was done individually.</p></li>
<li><p>Yes, I think so.</p></li>
<li><p>So far so good.</p></li>
<li><p>How much authority and flexibility do the advisors have to fashion a course of study that meets your student's specific goals and needs, or do they merely hand out a photocopied list of required courses from the departmental office?</p></li>
</ol>

19

<p>Carolyn, I'm not sure I can explain this very well, so will give you links to the programs I know of. Hope this helps. I can tell you that my son is very happy with the 2 programs he is in, and likes the personal attention. The professors also alert the advisors if the student is struggling academically and they then meet with the students. </p>

<p><a href="http://web.mit.edu/firstyear/fas/%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://web.mit.edu/firstyear/fas/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p><a href="http://web.mit.edu/firstyear/2008/subjects/lc.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://web.mit.edu/firstyear/2008/subjects/lc.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p><a href="http://web.mit.edu/firstyear/2008/advising/%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://web.mit.edu/firstyear/2008/advising/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

20

<p>At Pomona they meet once per semester with their advisor before registration. If you have a major you get an advisor in that field. They are available more often but students need to initiate. My S bumped into his advisor one other time at a party for his major and she inquired how he was doing. His first meeting went well and he liked her a lot. This past mtg was very short , she was rushed for another meeting and hurried, saying let me sign your slip for you I need to go. My S was disappointed and felt like she shouldn't have scheduled a time with him if she had another engagement but he felt like he had a handle on his courses and had sought out inf from peers ahead of time. He could always reschedule another meeting but of course that will not happen. There is a good sponsor group where freshman have 2 sophomores or a junior who live on their hall and are available. If you seek out help it is there as well. For freshman however, I think the advisor should initiate a little more but to be fair she may have just had a bad day.</p>