This is the third in a series of three articles in which the results of the NACADA Academic Advising Survey 2000 are presented. In this article, advisor satisfaction and suggested avenues for service and professional enhancement are reported. These factors are examined according to the type, mission, and size of the respondents' institutions. In addition, comparisons are made between faculty advisors and professional staff advisors, between advisors and academic administrators, between respondents from centralized and decentralized advising offices, and between advising offices located in academic units and administrative units.

Both students and advisors often assume that a lighter academic load during the first year of college will result in greater student success. This article examines that assumption. Academic load is measured in terms of credit load and course difficulty; success is measured in terms of GPA and retention. The experiences of a sample of first-year students at a comprehensive regional university are examined. While the credit loads for which students register are related to academic ability and prior academic success, the difficulty level of courses for which these students register is not. Variation in student credit loads is reduced because weaker students are required to take developmental courses but do not drop a corresponding number of college-credit courses. Contrary to common assumptions, students who register for more credits tend to earn higher GPAs and have greater retention even after controlling for academic ability, prior academic success, on-campus employment hours, and other background characteristics. Students who register for more difficult courses, however, tend to earn lower GPAs and experience lower retention. Any effect of credit load on retention appears to work through GPA. While much of the effect of course difficulty on retention also works through GPA, course difficulty does have a separate negative effect on 1-year retention. While the possibilities that weaker students might be more successful with lighter credit loads or that stronger students might be more successful with more difficult courses were investigated, no significant interactions between prior academic success, academic load, and success were found.

Researchers on student preferences for academic advising style suggest that students prefer developmental advising but experience prescriptive advising. However, data regarding first-year students are absent from these studies, thus limiting the conclusions. Therefore, I describe first-year students and their expectations and experiences with academic advisement. Students in the study preferred prescriptive advising and described their advising experience as primarily prescriptive. Further examination of first-year students' advising preferences and consideration of effective advising as a developmental process, rather than a static philosophy of either developmental or prescriptive advising, is indicated.

We highlight a study of an academic advising program at the University of Michigan. Students were surveyed via the Internet, and we summarize data obtained in 2001 and 2002. The majority of respondents reported taking actions that they would not have considered without interaction with an academic advisor. These data have been used for staff discussion and program development. By annually adding cohort data to the survey results, we will be able to assess the students as they move through the university and to compare first-year student responses in year-to-year data sets.

In two recent publications, we reported that the academic intervention process, not the specific intervention content, was responsible for a short-and long-term influx in at-risk student performance (grade-point average) and persistence (retention). All at-risk students who participated in the most intrusive of three interventions had higher cumulative grade-point averages and retention rates than those who received less intrusive interventions. In this post hoc analysis, we looked at probationary students with learning disabilities and found that they are only responsive to the individual attention and personalized accommodation provided under a highly intrusive model, and the impact is temporary.

Solution-focused advising is a novel method for engaging students in the advising process. In NACADA Journal 22(1), we discussed a conceptual framework for understanding the integration of solution-focused therapy into academic advising of undecided students (Mayhall & Burg, 2002). In this article we expand on the introduction by providing specific information on the skills used in solution-focused advising. The techniques of goal setting, scaling questions, presuppositional questions, the miracle question, positive feedback, and homework assignments are discussed, and an illustration is provided for each intervention as it applies to various advising situations.