Harvard Advising Needs a Guiding Philosophy

By 1890, Harvard had instituted a Board of Freshman Advisers who, according to historian Samuel Eliot Morison, Class of 1908, “did little except address the entering class en masse, approve study cards, and invite the advisee to a pallid luncheon at the Colonial Club.”

More than a century later, freshman advising has remained much the same (sans Colonial Club luncheon). Such complacency is no longer acceptable — Harvard needs an advising system that lives up to its values and provides tangible benefits for students.

The College’s current approach to freshman advising is a hindrance to many of its goals. It is easy to disregard the importance of academic advising, especially for students as self-reliant as Harvard undergraduates. But while those scant few thirty-minute meetings might seem insignificant, they can make a huge impact on a student’s academic experience. Strong academic advising is linked to higher GPAs, increased student responsibility, and better study skills.

However, a faulty advising system doesn’t just rob students of these critical benefits: it directly violates Harvard’s purported goal of recentering academics. The College cannot claim it is doing everything in its power to emphasize education if it consistently fails to advise students during the most formative period of their undergraduate experience.

As it stands, of course students are going to hunt for gems instead of intellectual rigor — they’ve scarcely been instructed on how to select classes beyond fulfilling graduation requirements. If Harvard truly wishes to recenter academics, advising systems must be reoriented towards pushing students to grow and explore rather than to simply check boxes.

Furthermore, a lack of adequate advising perpetuates inequalities. A first-generation or low-income student, lacking additional means of support like college-educated family members who might provide input, is most likely to require quality advising. Effectively forcing them to advise themselves — as has often been the case — places an extra burden on students already struggling to find their place at the College.

Students who attended underfunded high schools are also likely to have had a more limited scope of academic exposure before college, thereby requiring more guidance to understand the full range of possibilities at Harvard. An advising system that simply approves the classes students select never challenges them to expand their horizons, antithetical to the mission of a liberal arts college.

The first step in developing a consistent philosophy? Hiring faculty advisors for freshmen. No one knows classes better than the people who teach them. It’s no coincidence that problems with Harvard advising are most prominent in the first year, before students receive faculty advisors within their concentration. Nationwide, students with faculty advisors report the highest levels of satisfaction with academic counseling. Harvard’s own faculty pre-concentration advising pilot was described as achieving “much success” and “tangible results.”

However, the program was gutted this April when the College decided to eliminate pre-concentration advisors altogether in favor of online modules and small group advising under entryway proctors. This is an utterly perplexing decision, given that a similar model has already been attempted and failed.

The Class of 2025 was the largest in Harvard’s history, requiring proctors (who are paid in meal swipes and housing) to take on as many as 18 advisees. One proctor described the situation as “hell,” forcing them to work as many as 80 hours a week, and others decried small group advising as ineffective. If advising 18 students leads to these outcomes, advising 40 (roughly the maximum number in an entryway) is simply not possible. Advisors, whether they be faculty or proctors, should have a maximum of ten advisees so that they may help each student as best as possible.

That being said, simply hiring faculty advisors is not enough, lest we fall into the same trap of approving classes rather than aiding in their discovery. Advisors should recommend classes based on interests, help students keep track of concentration requirements, and ensure schedules aren’t too overwhelming. This approach, known as proactive advising, has been shown to increase student retention and aid in academic success.

Furthermore, freshmen advisors have the unique opportunity to structure the beginning of a student’s academic career. Indeed, advisors should encourage students to take classes outside of their fields of interest, ensuring that students have the most informed perspective possible on both the world around them and what their passions are.

For freshman advising to be useful, the College must adopt an advising philosophy that prioritizes equity and intellectual expansion.

Khadija T. Khan ’28, a Crimson Editorial Editor, is a Philosophy concentrator in Currier House.