Human capital, defined as any characteristic of a worker that contributes to that worker's productivity, is presented in this article as a unifying theme for academic advising in higher education. Five categories of human capital–formal education, adult education, on-the-job-training, health, and geographic mobility–and academic advising issues related to developing students' human capital in each category are presented. Students' vocational interests are identified with developing their human capital, and the principle of maximizing human capital is introduced as a basis for students' choices of academic curricula and particular courses and programs.

George Ritzer in his McDonaldization of Society addresses four basic and alluring dimensions of modern life: efficiency, predictability, quantifiable and calculated service, and control (Ritzer, 1993). With increasing and alarming frequency, academic advising in many commuter colleges has adopted the McDonaldization mindset. This is not a surprising evolvement given students' limited time on campus and the high percentages of nontraditional students who, while attending college, are often holding jobs and supporting families. Chesterfield-Marlboro Technical College adopted the McDonaldization mindset as they sought to make the advising process quick and efficient. In academic advising, however, faster is not always better.

Presented is a critical ethnographic analysis of minority culture-based policies and programs on six university campuses in Washington state and how their existence contributes to the retention and success of students of color and to increased racial and ideological separatism. Conclusions are based on interviews with 60 educators intimately involved with programs and policies that attempt to support or reinforce the culture and heritage of specific ethnic minority student groups.

Quality Function Deployment (QFD), a set of concepts and tools often used in manufacturing engineering to link consumer needs with product design, can be used to improve academic advising systems and processes. QFD promotes a structured and logical examination of students' advising needs and a rigorous examination of the relationship of these needs to the design of advising systems, processes, methods, and tools. Because its conceptual base is radically different from the disciplines underpinning advising theory, QFD can offer advising leadership useful insights and avenues for advising improvement.

As undergraduate students, most applicants to medical schools have majored in a natural science area. This study compared rates of acceptance and medical school academic performance of science and nonscience majors applying to 13 classes of The University of Alabama School of Medicine. There was no significant difference in acceptance rates between the two types of majors. Upon matriculation, medical students with nonscience majors performed as well as those with science majors on most standard measures of medical school academic performance.

Based on a concept described by the authors as “The Myth of the Academic Major,” a scheme for working with students who are undecided about their choice of major or career was developed. This scheme is a hands-on, time-limited method for using students' self-descriptions, rather than the institution's structure (e.g., lists of curricula), as the starting point for dialogue that points students in academic directions.

Articulation guides for students transferring between Northwest Community College in Powell, Wyoming and Montana State University-Billings are described. The articulation agreement between the two institutions includes course information and supportive advising for transfer students. We hypothesized that use of the guides would help students weather transfer shock better than those transfer students from community colleges where no guides had been available. The groups' declines in grade-point average (GPA) after transfer, recovery of GPA, and persistence were compared. It was found that the severity of transfer shock and the extent of recovery of GPA were not significantly related to the use of the transfer guides, but ability to persist to graduation was positively related. The format of the transfer guides and corresponding advising activities are detailed. Implications for students and administrators are also discussed.