How Well are We Advising our HSAA Students?

by Deb Mayhew, Chair, Undergraduate Advising Council

In recent years, new university students who have already completed two years of college credit hours have been the topic of much discussion among university administrators and the academic advising community.  The High School Associate in Arts (HSAA) degree is awarded to students who complete a 60-hour program of college level coursework while still in high school. Once a rarity, the HSAA has grown in popularity as students look for ways to make themselves stand out to admissions committees and parents seek opportunities to reduce the cost of a university education. In Fall 2011, UF admitted 468 HSAA students, up from 55 students in Fall 2006. This relatively new and unfamiliar student population raised new questions about what was needed to promote their academic success in the university environment. In Spring 2011, Dr. Bernard Mair charged the Undergraduate Advising Council with answering three questions:

• Were current admission practices the best way to admit these students?
• What should we do at Preview to promote their academic success?
• Were freshman-age students developmentally prepared for upper-division course work and a fast-track to graduation?

The admissions model for HSAA students has evolved in the past few years. Currently, HSAA students can be admitted to UF as freshmen or transfer students. If they make the freshman cut, they are treated like freshman. If they don’t make it, they are referred to their prospective colleges as transfer students. While most colleges hold to the transfer admissions criteria for these students, there are some programs that allow an extra degree of freedom in accepting these students. In programs that hold fast to completion of critical tracking courses, some HSAA students find themselves locked out of their desired major.  To prevent this from happening in the future, the UAC plans to increase communication to parents and students through the UF advising website, providing information that HSAA students should use in course planning if UF is the goal. 

The Preview program, in collaboration with UF’s colleges, has developed a good model for providing effective academic advising to these incoming students.  For the past two years, Preview has offered a special HSAA session and this year both freshman and transfer admits attended. This allowed the freshman age “transfer” students to participate in the regular Preview program (vs. the truncated transfer Preview they attended in the past). It also provided the opportunity for these students to meet with an advisor from their intended college since Preview advisors cannot reasonably be expected to advise students for upper division programs.

The question of student development was a tough one. While there has been a pervasive feeling that HSAA students must need support, efforts such as special sections of SLS 1102 and individual college programs produced no clear results. A look at the numbers offers some insight. Since Fall 2006, 238 HSAA students have graduated from UF.  While fewer than 6% of them graduated in four semesters, nearly 46% attained their bachelor’s degree within six terms. More than one-third of them (33.8%) take at least as long as traditional freshmen to complete their degrees.  Apparently, not every HSAA student wants to leave the university in a shortened time frame.  While time-to-degree results are less than dramatic, retention rates are good. Of the students in this data set, 89% had graduated or were still enrolled.

Based on retention rates, there is no indication that HSAA students have needs that are different from any other UF undergraduate. With many freshmen starting college with up to 45 hours of credit through other acceleration mechanisms, the advising community is already adept at providing guidance to students who begin at various levels. There are certainly questions other than those we addressed here, and further investigation may point us in new directions, especially if the numbers of HSAA students continue to grow. In the meantime, encouraging students, parents, and high school counselors to plan ahead, connecting these students to their academic advisors during summer orientation, and offering the same advising and coaching support that is already available on our campus seems to be working well.