INSIGHTS | PRE-ADVISING FOR INCOMING STUDENTS
Pre-Advising for Incoming Students
What does an advisor need to know before advising an incoming student?
The answer may be different from one college or university to another.
An advisor may need to understand a student’s intended or admitted major. Prior college credit may matter. Placement information may matter. The student may have questions about courses, academic interests, scheduling, programs, or other parts of their first-term experience.
The student may also have work to do before advising begins.
They may need to provide information, complete placement activities, review academic requirements, understand how registration works, or prepare questions for an advising conversation.
That work can happen before orientation, before an advising appointment, before course registration, or across several stages.
Together, that work can become part of pre-advising for incoming students.
What is pre-advising?
Pre-advising is the work that helps prepare incoming students, advisors, or both for the academic decisions and actions that occur as students enter a college or university.
It does not describe one universal process.
At one institution, students may complete a pre-advising form before orientation. At another, academic information may be collected during the orientation registration process. Another institution may ask students to complete placement activities before meeting with an advisor.
Some institutions may provide advising before an in-person orientation program. Others may advise students during orientation. Still others may separate advising and orientation while coordinating the two.
The important question is not whether advising happens at one particular point.
It is:
What needs to happen before the student and advisor are ready for the next academic step?
Pre-advising can begin before the advising appointment
The advising conversation may be the most visible part of the process.
But the work that makes that conversation useful can begin earlier.
A college or university may need information about:
- the student’s intended or admitted major
- previous college or dual-enrollment credit
- placement or testing information
- academic interests
- course interests
- schedule considerations
- learning communities or special programs
- questions or concerns the student wants to discuss
Not every institution needs all of that information.
The purpose is not to collect everything that could possibly be known about a student.
It is to collect and organize the information the institution has determined is useful for preparing the student and the advisor.
A pre-advising form is only one part of the process
A college or university may begin by looking for a pre-advising form or an advising intake process.
That can be an important part of the work.
A form may allow students to provide academic context, interests, preferences, questions, or other information before advising occurs.
But collecting information is only the beginning.
Someone may need to review the responses. Information from other institutional systems may also matter. Missing or conflicting information may need attention. Advisors may need a useful summary, list, planning sheet, or other preparation material.
The question becomes:
How does the information students provide become useful to the people advising them?
That can make pre-advising larger than simply building a survey or form.
Students may need preparation too
Pre-advising is not only about preparing the advisor.
Incoming students may also need to understand what they are expected to do before an advising or registration experience.
Depending on the institution, that could include completing placement activities, reviewing academic information, understanding degree or program requirements, preparing questions, completing an online module, or learning how the registration process works.
The objective is not to turn students into their own academic advisors.
It is to help them arrive at the advising process with the preparation their institution expects.
That can make the actual advising interaction more focused on the decisions and questions that require an advisor’s expertise.
Advising appointments may also need to be scheduled
For some colleges and universities, preparing students for advising also includes getting them into the appropriate advising appointment or experience.
Depending on the institution’s model, students may need to register for an advising appointment, select from available times, or be scheduled for an advising experience as part of orientation.
The advising appointment may also need to connect with other parts of the incoming-student process. A student may need to complete certain preparation before advising, attend advising before registering for courses, or coordinate advising with an orientation schedule.
Not every institution handles advising appointments the same way.
The important question is whether the advising process gives students and staff a clear path from preparation to the advising experience and, when appropriate, into first-term registration.
Advising and course registration are connected, but they are not the same thing
For many incoming students, academic advising and first-term course registration happen close together.
At some institutions, advising may lead directly into registration.
At others, a student may receive an advising plan and register later.
Some students may register themselves. Others may receive additional assistance. Some institutions may use multiple advising or registration stages.
This is why new student advising and registration can represent connected work without being one single activity.
Advising helps students understand academic choices and requirements.
Registration is the action of enrolling in courses.
Technology supporting the incoming-student process should respect that distinction rather than assuming every institution handles advising and registration the same way.
Different students may require different advising preparation
Incoming students are not always one uniform population.
First-year students and transfer students may need different information.
A student entering with prior credit may have different questions from a student entering without it.
Students in different academic programs, campuses, or other institution-defined groups may also have different advising processes.
That does not mean every student needs a completely different pre-advising experience.
It means the institution may need to recognize the differences that already matter in its academic model.
The right pre-advising process should reflect those distinctions without creating unnecessary complexity.
Information may need to come from more than one place
The information needed for advising may already exist across several institutional systems and offices.
Admissions may hold information about the student’s intended program.
The student information system may contain additional academic information.
Placement results may come from another process.
Academic colleges or departments may own program-specific requirements.
The student may provide additional information through a pre-advising intake or survey.
No single system necessarily needs to own all of that information.
A useful question is:
What information does the advising process need, who appropriately owns it, and how does it become available when it is needed?
That question can be more useful than trying to move every advising-related responsibility into one technology platform.
How are students connected with the appropriate advisor?
At some colleges and universities, determining who should advise a student is straightforward.
At others, the process may involve academic college, major, campus, advising unit, program participation, or other institution-defined considerations.
Some institutions may assign students before orientation. Others may use different advisors during orientation and after the student begins classes. Some may have centralized advising, while others distribute advising across academic colleges or departments.
Technology may support information related to advisor assignment when that responsibility belongs within the institution’s incoming-student process.
But the institution should determine the assignment model.
Technology should support that model rather than define it.
What should colleges and universities look for in pre-advising technology?
There is no single pre-advising process every institution should adopt.
A better evaluation begins with the advising and orientation model already in place.
Consider:
- When does academic advising begin for incoming students?
- What needs to happen before the advising interaction?
- What information does the student need to provide?
- What institutional information does the advisor need?
- Are placement or testing activities part of the preparation?
- Do different student populations need different questions or steps?
- Does the student complete a pre-advising form or intake?
- How is that information reviewed and organized?
- Does the advisor need a summary, planning sheet, list, or student profile?
- Do students register for or schedule advising appointments?
- How does advising appointment scheduling connect with orientation?
- Who determines the student’s advisor or advising unit?
- How does advising connect to first-term course registration?
- What happens when information is missing or changes?
- Which office owns each part of the process?
- Which information should remain in another institutional system?
- How does orientation participate without taking ownership of academic advising?
Those questions help define what the institution actually needs its pre-advising process to accomplish.
From pre-advising to a prepared advising experience
A college or university may begin its search looking for pre-advising, pre-orientation academic advising, a pre-advising form, advising appointment scheduling, or technology supporting new student advising and registration.
But the immediate need can reveal a larger responsibility.
Students may need to provide information and complete preparation. Advisors may need information from students and institutional systems. Advising appointments may need to be registered for or scheduled. Different student populations may follow different processes. Advising may connect closely with orientation and first-term registration without being owned by the orientation office.
The larger question becomes:
How do we help the student and the advisor arrive at the advising interaction prepared for the work that needs to happen?
How VZOS® supports pre-advising
VZOS® is VisualZen’s Orientation Management Platform for colleges and universities.
Pre-advising and advising preparation can be part of the orientation responsibilities the platform supports when that work intersects the institution’s incoming-student process.
Depending on the institution’s needs, VZOS® can support student intake, preparation activities, academic and student information, advisor preparation, advising appointment registration and scheduling, communications, first-term registration support, and connections with other parts of orientation.
But VZOS® is not intended to replace the professional work of academic advising.
And an institution does not need to move every advising responsibility into VZOS®.
One institution may use the platform for a focused pre-advising responsibility. Another may connect that work with advising appointments, orientation registration, student preparation, personalized schedules, communications, check-in and attendance, or other parts of the incoming-student experience.
The appropriate role depends on what the institution has decided orientation should own and what should remain with advising, the Registrar, academic colleges, or other campus systems.
Your advising model is yours
There is no universal model for incoming-student advising.
Some institutions advise students before orientation.
Some advise during orientation.
Some separate advising from the orientation event while coordinating the two closely.
Students may register for an advising appointment, be scheduled for one, register independently for courses, register with assistance, receive a planning sheet, meet individually with an advisor, participate in group advising, or move through several stages before their first-term schedule is complete.
VisualZen’s role is not to decide which advising model your institution should use.
Our job is to understand where advising intersects orientation, what preparation the institution has decided matters, and where technology can appropriately support that work.
Your advising model is yours. VZOS® can support the pre-advising responsibilities your institution has decided the platform should own.
