Initial Advising Advice

Dear Faculty Advisers,

Thank you again for your willingness to serve as an initial adviser for the entering first-year students. This is a very different year given that FY registration was completed in the summer. We're writing as a follow up to our email from earlier this week to answer questions we've been receiving from some of you and from some first-years since they've received their class schedules.

Your advisees are now registered for their fall term courses. This summer all incoming first-years met with their summer registration advisers (10 of your faculty colleagues) to learn about our course offerings and programs. They were advised to take an exploratory, liberal arts approach to selecting their top 20, 3- or 4-credit courses and their top 5, 1- or 2-credit courses. Using these course preferences, the Registrar set about building schedules for each of them. The vast majority of students got courses in their top 4, and almost all have a schedule built entirely from their top 20 courses. A very small number received one course that had to be chosen outside of their course preferences.

As with our traditional registration process not everyone will be completely satisfied with their schedule. We encourage you to work with your advisees to show them that their schedule reflects the priorities of the foundation and distribution guide to exploring the W&L course curriculum. Please remind them that they have 3.5 more years to explore other courses and areas they were not able to get in this first term.

Please also let your advisees know registration is currently closed for all first-year students - the best advice is for them to breathe. This means they cannot make any changes (e.g., drop/add) and cannot add to waitlists at this time**. However, they will be able to make changes or add onto waitlists beginning the morning of Sept. 9 after they have met with you on Sept. 8. Please direct them to https://my.wlu.edu/university-registrar/courses-and-registration/registration-help-for-students to remind them of the mechanics of the drop/add process. You can discuss courses with them, and you will need to give the adviser authorization for the drop/add process through webadvisor (instructions for you).

Thank you,
Paul

**If, however, one of your advisees was placed into a course that is no longer appropriate after receiving, for example, an AP or IB score or a W&L World Language or Mathematics placement test score, we may be able to make a change before the drop/add period. If this is the case, please have your advisee contact the registrar's office.