Student advisors' course planning - Scots College

Owned by Joe Lobotka (Unlicensed)
Last updated: Aug 06, 2015
5 min read

Disclaimer: Aim of this document IS NOT to criticise or question the performance of our student advisors. On the contrary - I think their work was highly professional, very enthusiastic, engaging and entertaining at the same time, and I am absolutely sure their personal interaction with prospective students is one of our most powerful 'tools' at this very moment (in terms of giving information, removing obstacles & increasing number of enrolments). Let's not start thinking about how to replace/mitigate their roles - let's think about how could our website support them in their efforts & what could we improve (on the website) to deliver a similar experience to prospective students they are unable reach.

General Facts

  • 2 our student advisors.
  • http://www.scotscollege.school.nz/
  • Year 13 (17/18 yrs old)
  • Attendance around +/- 50 boys (max)
  • Outreach has usually 2 stages:
    • Start of the year -> Introduction in the form of presentation-like marketing pitch.
    • July/August -> Personal Programmes/Courses planning (aim is to increase enrolments). 
  • Students HAVE TO attend an open day at Victoria (Note: how many other high schools' students HAVE TO attend those open days as well?)
  • Students are informed that the planning sessions is still a draft only - it's mentioned that it can still be changed later.
  • Everyone received GUS (see http://www.victoria.ac.nz/about/publications/guide-to-undergraduate-study.pdf) and a paper planner (something close to this: http://www.victoria.ac.nz/study/course-career/degrees-courses/planning-form-a.pdf ). Students who were interested in more information and support received small paper (A5-format) to fill in their address and contact info (~ around 10-15 did that. I was told many other students from that group already had done that in the past. Student advisors will put those contact information into their CRM).
  • Generally very cooperative audience (quiet, focused). 
  • Approximate Programme/Degree composition: 
    • Architecture/Building (5 ppl) 
    • BCom/LLB (6 ppl)
    • Computer Science (biggest group, approx. 10?)
    • Law (3 ppl)
    • Several unique Programmes/Majors such as Criminology, Geology, Tourism Management... 
    • Few double majors, at least 2 conjoint degrees, 1 national-level soccer player with unique requirements.

Schedule

  1. Info about Accommodation + Scholarship deadlines
  2. 14th of Oct - open evening (info that they can get more information about enrolment process)
  3. Halley very clearly explaining how the UG degree works (360 points, trimesters, majors, what does it mean 'course' etc.). 5-10 mins max. (very condensed and quick, almost no time for questions)
  4. H. explaining how to find programmes inside GUS and basic strategy to plan programme/courses
    1. "Starting point are courses groups you MUST do".
    2. "Look at the courses inside each course group and pick up enough courses for 1st and 2nd trimester." (around 60 points each)
    3. Add other courses you might like to fill in the blank spaces.
  5. Showing programmes example and suggesting others to use them.
  6. Splitting students into several groups according to programme/field they want to study. Each student advisor is then going from one group to the other and explaining/consulting every programme separately (that sometimes lead to 1on1 consultations if the group subjects inside a group vary too much, i.e. Bachelor of Arts).
  7. Meanwhile, other students (groups without student advisor presence) have time to assemble their courses on their own.
  8. After visiting each group, advisers started with 1on1 consultation with remaining students.

Observations, Notes

  • A majority of interested students were probably decided to go to Victoria.
  • Few students did not get their GUS and course planner paper as nobody expected such a high attendance (suspicion that students wanted to avoid their regular classes - personal feeling is that at least 25 were really interested).
  • At the start, not too much space for questions or discussion from the student's side (fast presentation-like style). (Reason is probably tight time schedule).
  • Time limitations also probably led to the hectic and more chaotic atmosphere. This 'time stress' could affect students' understanding of what was said by student advisors.
  • College didn't handle the organisation of the event very well - room was not very suitable for our P2P approach (auditorium-like layout of the room). Additionally, after 40 minutes (out of planned 120 minutes) they asked us to leave the current room, despite of the planned schedule. 
  • Most of the students started by choosing a Programme or a Major and then got stuck (or just waited) for advisors. Some of them were able to fill in core courses and then got stuck.
  • Some courses unnecessarily overcomplicated and illogical (ACCY 001) and as such, they were bringing lots of confusion and led to many mistakes (no matter how well it was explained by the advisor at the beginning).
  • Advisors are using course codes heavily which seemed hard to follow (student hear course code but doesn't understand what's behind, could forget the code etc.). 
  • Programmes with pre-defined 1st-year courses were (obviously) easier to understand, follow and 'plan' (i.e. Architecture, Law). However, there still was at least little bit of explanation around requirements and rules (i.e. selection to Architecture specialisations based on grades).
  • Almost no student applying for a more flexible programme was able to fill in his plan for the 1st year on his own (they had usually filled in core courses or left it blank). Advisor had to come, took their pen and fill it in for them.
  • At least 1 student was interested in his time-table and wanted to know where he could check it. Advisors told them to check it out on the website and noted he should be careful as this may change next year.
  • Few students did not understand a term 'minor', another at least 2 forgot how many points they are supposed to have in every trimester (number of points was missing on the paper planner).
  • Some of students' requirements could not be handled even by our students advisors on the spot. Ex.: Student playing soccer on the national level who needs to adjust his plan to fit his schedule (advisors gave him an e-mail to the person from Victoria who should be able to individually help him).
  • (Computer Science major + Music minor/major) Too hard to plan courses for this one on the spot. Advisor suggested to search those courses on the website and read more details (i.e. pre-requisites for 200 level courses had to be checked and 100 level courses planned accordingly). With that said, this student did not finish his planning when we were leaving (a possibility he could give up & we would miss our opportunity to make another conversion).
  • Advisors are able to reach around 3000 high school students (more at marketing-like presentation at the start of the year, less on the course planning). Course planning sessions are probably leading to our highest conversion rate, however, the rest of the NZ high school students are not reached by our outreach activities.
  • Once or twice, advisors did not have enough time to fully understand student's motivation which could lead to misleading programme/major recommendations.
  • Over time, some students demanded attention, but could not get it (only 2 advisors on 20 students in the room).
  • Some students (I noticed at least 2) tried to give advisors their filled Course Planner back (Note: Did they think it was an enrollment? What to do after planning was communicated at least once [see Schedule, points 2 and 3]).

Conclusion(s)

Course planning is a hard and confusing thing to do, even if students attend an event like this one. It's pretty clear that personal 1on1 meetings are most helpful, group planning is moderately helpful and website/GUS is least helpful (important to say that GUS is still doing its job pretty well if we consider it's just a book with no level of interaction).


Generally speaking, the more flexible programme is, the more confusion it brings to those interested in applying. With this said, identification of those programmes & putting extra effort to provide better and clearer information could help lower the confusion. 

Additionally, the requirement of having all 1st-year courses already planned BEFORE enrolment into our University could be creating unnecessary barrier for those interested in studying on Victoria (level of prospective student's commitment and motivation is lower BEFORE enrolling. This means that portion of prospective students trying to choose their courses in order to apply will give up because [level of frustration/confusion] > [motivation, commitment]. However, if the same group of students was enrolled first and THEN had to plan their courses, they would probably be willing to persist longer & overcome more obstacles.