| Author | |
cheesehead mom
Forum Pro
Joined: Aug 08 2006
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 374
|
| Posted: May 05 2014 at 12:39pm | IP Logged
|
 |
|
So oh wise moms of college kidos...when the colleges have their incoming freshman day for student and parent in the summer--they get their student ID/acclimated to campus/advising appointment--do you sit in on the advising appointment or not? Just curious. All new here as this is our first.
Laura
|
| Back to Top |
|
| |
SallyT
Forum All-Star
Joined: Aug 08 2007
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 2489
|
| Posted: May 05 2014 at 1:12pm | IP Logged
|
|
|
No. I think we had actually left town by the time our daughter first saw her advisor, but in any event, we figured that this was her game, not ours. She didn't adore her first advisor, but he steered her pretty well on the front end, and by second semester she had declared her major and gotten a new advisor, whom she has loved and used as a sounding board for all kinds of things not necessarily directly related to her field of study . . . anyway, I think we thought that if she was enough of an adult to be in college, she was enough of an adult to handle herself in a meeting with her advisor, a scenario she was going to have to get acclimated to pretty fast anyway.
My husband does a lot of freshman advising at Belmont Abbey -- there, the professors who teach the First Year Symposium class, which every incoming student has to take, also act as advisors to the students in their particular sections for the first year, or until the students declare their majors and acquire advisors in the appropriate departments. I'll have to ask him how many parents sit in on initial advising sessions with him -- my intuition is that it's not very many, though I'm sure some do.
If you have a particular concern, it might be worth rehearsing with your child how he/she might raise it with the advisor, either in that first meeting or via email. Some kids might not know just how accessible their advisors are, or that it's okay to email them . . . It can be good to go over just how one makes use of this very important resource! I know that I spent a good bit of time in phone conversations freshman year saying to my daughter, "Email your advisor. Go talk to your advisor. This isn't working? You're thinking that? Ask your advisor." But we let her deal with it all herself from Day One.
Sally
__________________
Castle in the Sea
Abandon Hopefully
|
| Back to Top |
|
| |
SallyT
Forum All-Star
Joined: Aug 08 2007
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 2489
|
| Posted: May 05 2014 at 1:14pm | IP Logged
|
|
|
Oh, actually, she went to the initial Accepted Student weekend by herself anyway. I guess we subscribe to the "throw them in the pool" philosophy of sending people to college . . . :)
Sally
__________________
Castle in the Sea
Abandon Hopefully
|
| Back to Top |
|
| |
cathhomeschool
Board Moderator
Texas Bluebonnets
Joined: Jan 26 2005
Location: Texas
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 7303
|
| Posted: May 05 2014 at 2:56pm | IP Logged
|
|
|
We have two in college and I went to the advising session with both. All of the advisers for the College of Architecture have offices in the same "room." I didn't see any parents stay behind when their appointment time came up. At times when they wanted the students to be on their own, they had break out sessions for students and separate sessions for the parents.
I'm glad I went. The advisers are great, but ours assumed that all students struggle with certain courses. Her assumptions (and recommendations) were correct with one son, but totally not with the other. Scholarship requirements and AP credit also complicated second son's degree plan so we had to juggle a bit to jump through the right hoops without taking too many hours (and being financially penalized).
__________________
Janette (4 boys - 22, 21, 15, 14)
|
| Back to Top |
|
| |
SallyT
Forum All-Star
Joined: Aug 08 2007
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 2489
|
| Posted: May 06 2014 at 8:55am | IP Logged
|
|
|
I think this probably varies from college to college and program to program, honestly -- and also probably varies depending on when students first see their advisors. Neither UD, where my daughter is a student, nor Belmont Abbey, where my husband teaches, does a summer new-student orientation where freshmen meet their advisors. That happens when students arrive on campus for the fall semester.
So parents are dropping them off and participating in some orientation activities (as we did when we dropped our daughter off at UD), but are not involved in advising sessions, which may happen after the parent part of orientation is over. Abbey students receive at least a provisional schedule over the summer, as do UD students, if memory serves me -- I have this hazy recollection of my daughter's choosing classes by mail before she went. Then they hash out any final details with their advisors when they come in the fall.
This is a workable MO for schools with a core curriculum, where there's a range of classes *everybody* will be taking in their first two years, regardless of their eventual major and what credits they might have brought with them (e.g., you might have taken a world religions class at the community college, but you still have to take Intro to Theology at the Abbey, because it's a core course). I can see how it might not be as easily workable an MO in a different kind of program with more variables at stake.
Our daughter did come with some college credits to transfer, but she dealt with that on her own, with the registrar's office, during the course of the first semester. Those credits did bump her ahead a little, but wouldn't really have made any difference in her first-semester course schedule.
My husband says he's literally never had a parent sit in on an advising session, and would consider it . . . if not actually inappropriate, at least somewhat intrusive. As college parents, we have tended to be very hands-off -- our daughter calls us a lot for advice, and we give it, but she manages her own affairs. BUT conventions might be quite different someplace else, and our college children are not all the same, so I would not say that that's necessarily a hard-and-fast rule.
I would talk over with my child what things he/she might need to bring up in an initial advising session, regardless of whether you're there or not: questions about course load, transfer credits/CLEP, possible majors, whatever. Beyond that first session, the student will be solely responsible for meetings with his/her advisor for the rest of his/her college career, so some conversation to prepare for that is a good idea, whether you're going to be there at the first meeting or not. It's one of those life-skill things . . . :)
Exciting times, though! Congratulations to you!
Sally
__________________
Castle in the Sea
Abandon Hopefully
|
| Back to Top |
|
| |
Martha
Forum All-Star
Joined: Aug 25 2005
Location: N/A
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 2291
|
| Posted: May 06 2014 at 9:38am | IP Logged
|
|
|
It depends
If you feel it best, do it and do it without apology.
I would think it would depend on the student. For my eldest, I have to walk him through many of the simplest things for reasons that are no one else's business. I will absolutely be sitting in on his advisor sessions. And if the advisor doesn't like it, I suggest the advisor start paying the bill. I have zero qualms being a pushy over involved mom with this son, go the majority of the time, I am very hands off about activities outside the home. I do get quite a bit of push back on it and frankly, I wish those people would shut up and realize that I know my son better than they do and neither of us owe them an explanation. It's a tightrope walk that only I get the dubious pleasure of walking, and I don't need anyone blowing hot air at me as I do it tyvm. (End of rant that isn't really directed at anyone here. This is just a timely question.  )
That said, if a parents doesn't sit in, I don't care. I presume they know best what they or their child feels comfortable doing.
What's your young adult want you to do? Though many won't mind going solo, I think there's more than a few who would at least secretly appreciate a more seasoned person to help with the right questions. Alas, some advisors are not only inept, they often end up costing the student money in the long run. If the family is like mine and on a exceptionally tight budget, there's more trepidation over making such errors.
So that brings me back to my original opinion:
It depends. 
__________________
Martha
mama to 7 boys & 4 girls
Yes, they're all ours!
|
| Back to Top |
|
| |
guitarnan
Forum Moderator
Joined: Feb 07 2005
Location: Maryland
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 10883
|
| Posted: May 06 2014 at 10:47am | IP Logged
|
|
|
Quote:
| Alas, some advisors are not only inept, they often end up costing the student money in the long run. |
|
|
Sadly, this is true. I strongly encourage parents to read the college's online handbook, particularly the parts about tuition, fees, registration/course credit policies and financial aid. The handbook, not the pretty parts of the website.
We didn't go with our son to his advisor appointments, but I wish I had known more about our community college's high school dual credit program before he signed up for that. His "admissions advisor" (I use that term loosely) did not know anything about the program and that turned out to be a problem.
__________________
Nancy in MD. Mom of ds (24) & dd (18); 31-year Navy wife, move coordinator and keeper of home fires. Writer and dance mom.
|
| Back to Top |
|
| |
cheesehead mom
Forum Pro
Joined: Aug 08 2006
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 374
|
| Posted: May 06 2014 at 4:02pm | IP Logged
|
|
|
Thanks for the responses ladies, all good insights...it seems like people are about split so looks like it will fall back on mom intuition  As it turns out he will be doing his initial visit via phone/online as he chose a college pretty far away.
Laura
|
| Back to Top |
|
| |
SallyT
Forum All-Star
Joined: Aug 08 2007
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 2489
|
| Posted: May 07 2014 at 1:40pm | IP Logged
|
|
|
Well, I've been thinking that I hope I didn't make my husband sound like a jerk! He's totally not. I was surprised that he had *never* had a parent sit in, but then he stressed to me that the way orientation is set up at the Abbey, parents typically have left to go home before kids get into academic advising sessions. For questions having to do with transfer credits, financial aid, and the like, I think his MO would be, in any case, to send the party in question to the registrar, the financial aid office, etc, to sort out whatever the concern was, since those things are out of his immediate purview, and then go from there.
And of course, even if the advisor isn't *expecting* a parent to sit in, that doesn't mean that you can't or shouldn't. It's generally a convention that they're not necessarily expecting you, but conventions are just that -- not hard-and-fast rules. As Martha and others point out, there can be good reasons to do so. We have friends going to the community college here who have advisor horror stories -- the students have sorted them out themselves, but boy, oh, boy . . . in their case, it was like the advisor was thinking that people needed help reading the catalog and hadn't bothered to know anything more than that X courses were on page Y, and you should probably sign up to take some. Yeah, thanks, our friends said . . .
Good luck to him with his phone/online appointments! Hopefully everything will fall into place without a hitch.
Sally
__________________
Castle in the Sea
Abandon Hopefully
|
| Back to Top |
|
| |
|
|
4Real Forums : High School Years and Beyond
Topic: Do attend their first advising appt?
