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Some problems can be improved with a simple contact point Absolutely. Most schools don't employ enough advisors to have sit-down appointments with every studen

Some problems can be improved with a simple contact point Absolutely. Most schools don't employ enough advisors to have sit-down appointments with every student every semester. However, I did see a school implement a policy where 1st semester students-- a higher risk population-- were required to have a sit down like that before they were allowed to register for the next semester. That single effort resulted in a 15% decrease in 1st-year dropouts.

Spooky23 6y ago
Makes sense. I went to a big public university where they had two freshman tracks, a "college within the university" where, if you knew to sign up, you'd be in a cohort of students to meet some general education requirements and would get access to faculty motivated to help you. The problem was that the kids who needed the least help tended to discover this program. The "normal" path was being dumped into the University bureaucracy blind, and you had to learn to sink or swim. It was tough -- the registrar in those days was an experience like DMV. I'm pretty sure the system was devised as a funnel to disqualify people for popular majors like Business, Computer Science, etc.
- ineedasername 6y ago
  the kids who needed the least help tended to discover this program Heck yeah did you hit the nail on the head. I've analyzed the data over a period of years for which students utilize tutoring services: They very much tend to be students that were already doing alright before they started getting tutoring. Conscientious self-motivated students are precisely the ones most likely to seek out help on their own. As a result, for students that go on academic probation we now require them to attend a certain amount of tutoring hours each semester, and the software we use to manage advising caseloads allows faculty to raise a flag for students performing poorly so that advisors can pro-actively reach out and direct them to tutoring resources. This has led to a huge increase in tutoring resource utilization, but unfortunately they are now at the limits of their capacity. Our next hurdle is to analyze the academic outcomes of students using those resources, which will hopefully show increased performance & allow us to petition for more support services. Fortunately our leadership is not completely short-sighted on these issues, but as obvious as "more one-on-one advising & support" would seem, they (not too unreasonably) still demand very concrete evidence to justify additional expenditures. However it would be nice if they viewed customer service of this sort as the profit center it is, rather than a cost center. The problem is that things like the benefits of quality tutoring of freshmen may not yield tangible results for a few years, so things move slowly.

Spooky23 6y ago

Makes sense. I went to a big public university where they had two freshman tracks, a "college within the university" where, if you knew to sign up, you'd be in a cohort of students to meet some general education requirements and would get access to faculty motivated to help you. The problem was that the kids who needed the least help tended to discover this program. The "normal" path was being dumped into the University bureaucracy blind, and you had to learn to sink or swim. It was tough -- the registrar in those days was an experience like DMV. I'm pretty sure the system was devised as a funnel to disqualify people for popular majors like Business, Computer Science, etc.

ineedasername 6y ago
the kids who needed the least help tended to discover this program Heck yeah did you hit the nail on the head. I've analyzed the data over a period of years for which students utilize tutoring services: They very much tend to be students that were already doing alright before they started getting tutoring. Conscientious self-motivated students are precisely the ones most likely to seek out help on their own. As a result, for students that go on academic probation we now require them to attend a certain amount of tutoring hours each semester, and the software we use to manage advising caseloads allows faculty to raise a flag for students performing poorly so that advisors can pro-actively reach out and direct them to tutoring resources. This has led to a huge increase in tutoring resource utilization, but unfortunately they are now at the limits of their capacity. Our next hurdle is to analyze the academic outcomes of students using those resources, which will hopefully show increased performance & allow us to petition for more support services. Fortunately our leadership is not completely short-sighted on these issues, but as obvious as "more one-on-one advising & support" would seem, they (not too unreasonably) still demand very concrete evidence to justify additional expenditures. However it would be nice if they viewed customer service of this sort as the profit center it is, rather than a cost center. The problem is that things like the benefits of quality tutoring of freshmen may not yield tangible results for a few years, so things move slowly.