"Advising here sucks," said the UVA tour guide

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"Advising here sucks," said the UVA tour guide

I thought maybe the tour guide was just having an off day.
But I've seen this type of comment in numerous threads here at DCUM, and also at College Confidential.

For those of you who have had direct experience with UVA's advising being "hit or miss" etc,
what exactly are the issues?

- professors don't spend enough time with the student?
- the courses are always full?
- the curriculum is hard to navigate?

Thank you in advance for sharing!

As a parent of a third-year student, I can validate the tour guide’s assessment. Indeed, the University recognizes how spectacularly poor their advisory system is, announcing last year an overhaul of university advising this year. That remains to be seen. Assigned student advisors/professors for first year students are not responsive and often are not even remotely connected to students areas of study—even students in pre-professional areas. A computer science major could easily be assigned a philosophy professor as their adviser. Even by large university standards, UVA comes up short (and it is only mid-sized). Students end up relying instead on on-call associate deans who rotate and don’t know them, though some are good at responding to tactical questions regarding waitlists, add-drop policies/strategies, changing majors, etc. The professor-advisers, by contrast, generally are notoriously unresponsive. My theory is that UVA has gotten away with this not only because of its ranking but because it has a large population of hyper-motivated students who will find ways to press on regardless of unusually poor advising. Make no mistake, there are consequences for students for this shortcoming at UVA, including not discussing with students when it’s appropriate to change majors, change courses, not overload themselves their first year, etc. As a former educator at a large university, I’ve frankly been shocked by what I’ve seen. It is the university’s Achilles heel.

More appalling is that my DS has had undergraduate TAs one grade above him rather than graduate student TAs, including in courses such as computer science. As a former TA myself, I’ve never seen this at a state university. TAs often serve as informal advisors when the rest of the advisory system fails (read: is inaccessible). Doctoral students are in a better position than undergrads to TA (lead discussions and grade) and provide solid informal guidance, as well as to write recommendation letters for study abroad, internships, etc.

If my student was applying today, I would suggest to them that they grill the Dean of Students’ office (not tour guides) on what changes are being made to student advising. Students neither want nor need their hands to be held, but for $70k a yesr (out of state), they are entitled to responsive, sound, and engaged advising, particularly at important junctures of their academic careers.

If this link works, it contains info on the new advisory system.

https://uvamagazine.org/articles/reflections_on_our_university

[Anonymous]

I thought no one has a major in first year. How can there be a Computer Science major?

Aren’t you just working on Gen Eds anyway?

[Anonymous]

there are similar complaints at my DS's small private, s it's not just publics. First year advisers are just "general" and don't reach out at all. Since they actually do the registration for the first semester courses for the student (in July), it would have been nice to actually have a conversation with them once. Luckily, DS is on top of his courses and was able to adjust his schedule to his liking. Supposedly the major advisors are better.

I don't recall meeting with an advisor more than once in college. I had the catalog, it was up to me to take the right classes. it's not that difficult. with social media today it is a lot easier for college students to find out information, even what professors are good, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I had two kids attend UVA and both say that they were happy with their advisors whenever they called upon them. Which wasn’t very often. Not everyone needs hand holding. Except, that is, the parents of CTCL students whose kids couldn’t get into UVA and who are obsessed with justifying their insistence on going the second and third tier private school route.

Biased much? I went to a school that is on the CTCL list where the students were on their own in different cities and parts of the world on different experiential programs 1/3 of the time in school. Exact opposite of hand-holding and required much more independence than my kid who is at a large university. Regardless, don't know why you had to bring this into the conversation which was about what the advising was like at a particular school.

It's not like course registration is some deeply needed independent skill--but good advising can help you finish in 4 years since it's often impossible to know which courses you will need will be offered when at some schools except through advising--and colleges of all sizes can have good or bad advising in this regard.

Look, if you went to Harvard or Amherst or something, fine. Crow to your heart’s content. But beyond that, if you’re not going to UVA in state it’s because you’re either crazy or you didn’t get in and have an axe to grind. Like OP. There is not a snowflake’s chance in hell that the UVA tour guide said what OP says. Anybody who thinks otherwise is just plain stupid.

I just came back from a tour at a small NE college. (Tour guide said advising was great.) The guide was very opinionated about certain aspects of the school, and would say things like, “I think it’s ridiculous,” or “This is how they make money off of students.” My DC actually whispered, “I don’t think she likes it hear.” It was quite surprising. I assume there were complaints made about her after. I praised her after because I actually appreciated the honesty. The point is that I’m not surprised to hear that other tour guides also gave their honest opinion about a feature of the school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Mine doesn’t go to UVA but he and his roommates have all said the job of the advisors at their school is to keep them in school for five or six years.

Also false because UVA has one of the highest four-year graduation rates at 94.3%

Reading comprehension--the PP said it about a school that was explicitly not UVA.

no reading comprehension issue = the implication was clear. And why do people like you just go off on these "reading comprehension" issues? Why divert a thread with such nonsense? It's almost as if there is a group of DCUM'ers who feel intellectually inadequate so they like throwing out the "Reading comprehension issues much?" line whenever they can - even when it doesn't make sense. Just what VALUE are you actually adding to the conversation? NONE. Do you feel better about yourself trying to bring someone down by posting this? I've actually never understood the banality of the practice. So even when I see that someone on DCUM has actually IRL misread or misunderstood something, I try to help them by saying "I think 2:15 meant . . . ." Why throw out an insult? It certainly didn't work with me. I can buy and sell you before breakfast

So that’s a yes then on reading comprehension issues?

Maybe math issues too if you think you can “buy and sell” me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:well in fairness, the guide could have said "advising here sucks so make sure you take a COLA so at least you get to know your advisor in the first year rather than just being assigned". We don't know the context.

The COLA advisor for first year students is a joke. Fabulous in concept, laughable in implementation. Very unresponsive. (This refers to students taking a 1 credit COLA course their first semester, which gives them a de facto adviser.) I’ll be curious if this is changed with the revamp of student advising this year.

Well my kids choose a COLA with a very well liked professor and while she’s not in any dept they are interested in, she’s been awesome. My DD loves her so much she’s taking a class with her this fall. And as I said, she had very good insights which helped both of my kids. It’s better than just the random assignment and very responsive. So it all depends on who you get.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I had two kids attend UVA and both say that they were happy with their advisors whenever they called upon them. Which wasn’t very often. Not everyone needs hand holding. Except, that is, the parents of CTCL students whose kids couldn’t get into UVA and who are obsessed with justifying their insistence on going the second and third tier private school route.

Biased much? I went to a school that is on the CTCL list where the students were on their own in different cities and parts of the world on different experiential programs 1/3 of the time in school. Exact opposite of hand-holding and required much more independence than my kid who is at a large university. Regardless, don't know why you had to bring this into the conversation which was about what the advising was like at a particular school.

It's not like course registration is some deeply needed independent skill--but good advising can help you finish in 4 years since it's often impossible to know which courses you will need will be offered when at some schools except through advising--and colleges of all sizes can have good or bad advising in this regard.

Look, if you went to Harvard or Amherst or something, fine. Crow to your heart’s content. But beyond that, if you’re not going to UVA in state it’s because you’re either crazy or you didn’t get in and have an axe to grind. Like OP. There is not a snowflake’s chance in hell that the UVA tour guide said what OP says. Anybody who thinks otherwise is just plain stupid.

I just came back from a tour at a small NE college. (Tour guide said advising was great.) The guide was very opinionated about certain aspects of the school, and would say things like, “I think it’s ridiculous,” or “This is how they make money off of students.” My DC actually whispered, “I don’t think she likes it hear.” It was quite surprising. I assume there were complaints made about her after. I praised her after because I actually appreciated the honesty. The point is that I’m not surprised to hear that other tour guides also gave their honest opinion about a feature of the school.

I think this is a post-covid phenomenon. Kids are mad at what they've been through and some don't know how to express themselves properly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"Advising here sucks," said the UVA tour guide

I thought maybe the tour guide was just having an off day.
But I've seen this type of comment in numerous threads here at DCUM, and also at College Confidential.

For those of you who have had direct experience with UVA's advising being "hit or miss" etc,
what exactly are the issues?

- professors don't spend enough time with the student?
- the courses are always full?
- the curriculum is hard to navigate?

Thank you in advance for sharing!

As a parent of a third-year student, I can validate the tour guide’s assessment. Indeed, the University recognizes how spectacularly poor their advisory system is, announcing last year an overhaul of university advising this year. That remains to be seen. Assigned student advisors/professors for first year students are not responsive and often are not even remotely connected to students areas of study—even students in pre-professional areas. A computer science major could easily be assigned a philosophy professor as their adviser. Even by large university standards, UVA comes up short (and it is only mid-sized). Students end up relying instead on on-call associate deans who rotate and don’t know them, though some are good at responding to tactical questions regarding waitlists, add-drop policies/strategies, changing majors, etc. The professor-advisers, by contrast, generally are notoriously unresponsive. My theory is that UVA has gotten away with this not only because of its ranking but because it has a large population of hyper-motivated students who will find ways to press on regardless of unusually poor advising. Make no mistake, there are consequences for students for this shortcoming at UVA, including not discussing with students when it’s appropriate to change majors, change courses, not overload themselves their first year, etc. As a former educator at a large university, I’ve frankly been shocked by what I’ve seen. It is the university’s Achilles heel.

More appalling is that my DS has had undergraduate TAs one grade above him rather than graduate student TAs, including in courses such as computer science. As a former TA myself, I’ve never seen this at a state university. TAs often serve as informal advisors when the rest of the advisory system fails (read: is inaccessible). Doctoral students are in a better position than undergrads to TA (lead discussions and grade) and provide solid informal guidance, as well as to write recommendation letters for study abroad, internships, etc.

If my student was applying today, I would suggest to them that they grill the Dean of Students’ office (not tour guides) on what changes are being made to student advising. Students neither want nor need their hands to be held, but for $70k a yesr (out of state), they are entitled to responsive, sound, and engaged advising, particularly at important junctures of their academic careers.

If this link works, it contains info on the new advisory system.

https://uvamagazine.org/articles/reflections_on_our_university

You are a moron. That’s Teresa Sullivan- she hasn’t been president of UVA in years and that article is from 2017/18. If you are bitter about not getting in at least check your sources when you make something up. My DS had fantastic advisers (under the current UVA President, James Ryan, had close relationships with professors snd the Dean of students, far bettter letters of recommendation than I got from my Slac, which got him into Oxford for grad work. AMA

[Anonymous]

We found UVA didn't even have its act together arranging a campus visit. They were very confused, and disorganized. That was a big warning sign. My kid chose VT, which had its act together, no problem scheduling a campus tour. Like clockwork. Kid couldn't be happier there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We found UVA didn't even have its act together arranging a campus visit. They were very confused, and disorganized. That was a big warning sign. My kid chose VT, which had its act together, no problem scheduling a campus tour. Like clockwork. Kid couldn't be happier there.

hahaha
well we could arrange our tour online and had absolutely no problems, or lack of organization. I think maybe your kid chose VT because that's where they got in.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I thought no one has a major in first year. How can there be a Computer Science major?

Aren’t you just working on Gen Eds anyway?

Computer Science is part of engineering and students in the engineering school start taking classes toward their major first year. No all, but some.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I had two kids attend UVA and both say that they were happy with their advisors whenever they called upon them. Which wasn’t very often. Not everyone needs hand holding. Except, that is, the parents of CTCL students whose kids couldn’t get into UVA and who are obsessed with justifying their insistence on going the second and third tier private school route.

Biased much? I went to a school that is on the CTCL list where the students were on their own in different cities and parts of the world on different experiential programs 1/3 of the time in school. Exact opposite of hand-holding and required much more independence than my kid who is at a large university. Regardless, don't know why you had to bring this into the conversation which was about what the advising was like at a particular school.

It's not like course registration is some deeply needed independent skill--but good advising can help you finish in 4 years since it's often impossible to know which courses you will need will be offered when at some schools except through advising--and colleges of all sizes can have good or bad advising in this regard.

Look, if you went to Harvard or Amherst or something, fine. Crow to your heart’s content. But beyond that, if you’re not going to UVA in state it’s because you’re either crazy or you didn’t get in and have an axe to grind. Like OP. There is not a snowflake’s chance in hell that the UVA tour guide said what OP says. Anybody who thinks otherwise is just plain stupid.

I just came back from a tour at a small NE college. (Tour guide said advising was great.) The guide was very opinionated about certain aspects of the school, and would say things like, “I think it’s ridiculous,” or “This is how they make money off of students.” My DC actually whispered, “I don’t think she likes it hear.” It was quite surprising. I assume there were complaints made about her after. I praised her after because I actually appreciated the honesty. The point is that I’m not surprised to hear that other tour guides also gave their honest opinion about a feature of the school.

Are you willing to name the small NE college with great advising ? TIA

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Mine doesn’t go to UVA but he and his roommates have all said the job of the advisors at their school is to keep them in school for five or six years.

Which school ?

Or, at least, is this a National University, a regional school, an SLAC, or an LAC ?

Thank you in advance for your response.

My kid goes to GA Tech. His friends at UGA and GA southern have said the same thing. Advisors suck,

GA Tech is a great school, but their Administration is the worst I’ve ever seen. Everything is unorganized. They can’t even send out the tuition bills properly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We found UVA didn't even have its act together arranging a campus visit. They were very confused, and disorganized. That was a big warning sign. My kid chose VT, which had its act together, no problem scheduling a campus tour. Like clockwork. Kid couldn't be happier there.

hahaha
well we could arrange our tour online and had absolutely no problems, or lack of organization. I think maybe your kid chose VT because that's where they got in.

hahahaha agree. the kid is a UVA reject.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We found UVA didn't even have its act together arranging a campus visit. They were very confused, and disorganized. That was a big warning sign. My kid chose VT, which had its act together, no problem scheduling a campus tour. Like clockwork. Kid couldn't be happier there.

We went to UVA campus event on a Saturday and had the same impression- they just didn't have their act together. The administrators/speakers seemed so unprepared. The panel of students couldn't answer the question "Why did you choose UVA?" One actually said, well, it was the school that came up on my Questbridge so I clicked it. One said they didn't even come to campus, but that they applied because everyone else in their school did. They had all of us in the auditorium walk up 2 flights of stairs to go to a room where they served snacks... but they ran out of food before getting through the long line of people waiting outside. Hmmm. Wouldn't they have known how many people were going to be at the event?

Sunday we went to VT, in a huge auditorium with a lot more people They managed the crowd so incredibly well. We went to 3 presentations and they were all well-planned and really good. I didn't expect to like VT at all and came away with such a good impression.

Something I've noticed on this thread is that some of the UVA parents are so defensive and rude, calling other posters morons and liars. What is up with that? And what's up with "you're just bitter your kid didn't get in" Is this usual talk?

And no, my kid didn't get rejected.