Enrollment Management: Orientation Advising

Overview

ACC’s Orientation Advising team is tasked with entry advising for new students with fewer than 12 credit hours. Assisting these students not only provides an avenue for enrollment, but ensures that the students are helped without adding to the heavy area of study advising workload. We provide orientation sessions and entry advising throughout the year as applications are completed. Orientation sessions are delivered virtually and in person.

Accomplishments

• Orientation Advising supported students with fewer than 12 credit hours despite being partially staffed. We expect to be fully staffed by mid-April. The team is revamping the new student orientation presentations to better reflect available student success strategies and resources.
• Riverbat Roundup orientation events are planned, with the first phase scheduled for the fall with a day-long event at Highland Campus and another for health science students at Eastview Campus.
• We are working toward assisting all first-time ACC students regardless of credit hours earned. We are also planning optional First Semester Experience seminars led by orientation advisors to give students some direction and an opportunity to talk about their transition to ACC.

Impact

These changes should lessen the confusion on behalf of students. Providing orientation advising to all new students can eliminate questions about which route the student should take. It also helps with course selection, registration, and payment before orientation, reducing the chance a student will “drop off” while waiting to complete orientation or area of study advising.

Riverbat Roundup orientation events help students learn about campus resources, create a sense of belonging for students, and nurture the excitement of going to college.

First Semester Experience seminars provide more information and opportunities for students to discuss their place at ACC. Session Topics include Resources for Retention, Sense of Belonging, Planning for Future Semesters, and Resources for Continuing After ACC. The goal of these seminars is to help students in the first semester—particularly in early weeks—take full advantage of ACC resources to become successful Riverbats. This FSE will also set expectations for future semesters.

Next Steps

The focus for Orientation Advising will be on Riverbat Roundup events and First Semester Experience seminars, and re-focusing smaller orientation events throughout the year on success measures/resources and advising/registration case management as applications come in. Creating staffing and the structure for orientation advisors will fully support new students as they are entering the college.