Spring Checklist for College Advisers to Sophomores

When to contact your advisees

Where to find your advisees’ contact information

What your email to your advisees might say

  • Your welcome-back email might contain words of greeting plus the dates and times you’ve set aside for one-on-one advising meetings (or a link to your calendaring app)

When to meet with your advisees and for how long

What to talk about during your advising meetings

  • Your meetings should be holistic in nature and touch on academics (including course selection and distributional requirements for the sophomore year) as well as extracurricular activities, but also — and perhaps more importantly —they should recap the fall term. You’re encouraged to elicit your advisees’ thoughts on lessons learned and adjustments they plan to make in the spring term, as well as their thoughts about their prospective majors.
  • The vast majority of sophomores declare a major by the end of the sophomore year, while all undergrads must declare a major by the beginning of the junior year, at the latest. Sophomores who intend to major in a STEM field but haven’t yet declared a major should be encouraged to do so as soon as possible in order to receive accurate advising on course sequences and major requirements (most students interested in STEM declare the major in their first year).
  • Any questions about academics that you don’t know how to handle should be addressed to the dean of your residential college deans or to the relevant DUS. In other words, you’re not expected to know all 2,000 Yale College courses, 80+ majors, and the academic rules and regulations!
  • See Conversation starters

When spring course schedules are due

  • Students must finalize their course schedules by 5:00 p.m. on the last day of add/drop period. See the University Registrar’s “Registration Calendar” for dates.

Signing schedules

  • In our new registration system, advisers neither sign student schedules nor attest that an advising meeting has taken place. Instead, student schedules automatically become finalized at 5:00 on the last day of early registration period and, in the subsequent semester, whether or not changes have been made, on the last day of add/drop period.

What if …

  • You’re unavailable to meet your advisees this semester
    • inform your advisees’ residential college dean so that the dean may make alternative arrangements.
  • Students are missing from your list of advisees
    • the most likely explanation is that your advisee has declared a major and the DUS has become your advisee’s adviser
    • Only the Registrar’s Office has full access to adviser/advisee matches, so please direct any questions about “missing” advisees to registrar@yale.edu

What else …

Spring deadlines

  •  the Yale College Calendar with pertinent spring deadlines, including Martin Luther King Jr. Day, when classes do not meet, is available here