From Obstacle Course to Launching Pad:
Advising High Achievers
By Elizabeth Wilcox
Advising strategies have been developed for many groups, principally by demographic characteristic, as a way to expediently serve large numbers of students with similar needs. There is, however, a wide range of ability in the undergraduate population and within demographic groups and the institution is responsible for sensitively addressing the needs of students who perform as a variety of levels. Although much has been offered to effectively meet the needs of students who struggle, no coherent advising strategy exists for high achievers – students with advanced academic abilities working on complex academic plans involving high-level intellectual synthesis. Although these students are generally self-directed, high achievers also have special characteristics and needs requiring thoughtful attention. At an elite public university like Berkeley, the needs of high achievers seem especially relevant since these are the very students the institution aims to attract and develop. Ultimately, the goal is to deliver advising that is holistic, personalized and based on the unique interests, talents and abilities of individual students.
A number of key characteristics have been attributed to high achieving adolescents including multipotentiality or the ability for exceptional performance across multiple academic domains (Fredrickson, 1979), heightened sensitivity, idealistic thinking, sensitivity to expectations and a sense of urgency (Berger, 1993). High achievers also often possess a number of important personal qualities that set them apart. Socially they can range from being mature and self assured to quirky and interpersonally challenged. They can be self-directed, driven, highly organized, resourceful and assertive and they are often intensely focused on the future. In some forms they may present as offbeat, independent and unconventional. Based on their ability to perform well in many areas, they may feel intense pressure when making decisions. Under pressure they may be cynical and they may feel more anxiety to perform at high levels (Dougherty, 2007). Their free time is often spent in pursuit of a complex goal. They may be engaged in a wide range of experiential pursuits including many variations on community based, pre-professional, leadership, political, creative, athletic and other complex projects or activities and they can often be found teaching or supervising others. At the core, they have a profound love of learning and are likely to be engaged, active learners throughout their lifetime.
While it is tempting to use formal predictive indicators like test scores, GPA and participation in honors programs to identify high achievers, there are other means of identification. Although it takes more sensitivity and effort, high achievers are often best identified by their varied intellectual interests and ultimately by their course choices and enrollment patterns. Advisors are in a special position to identify high achievers since they have access to full transcripts and can, through sensitive interviewing, observe and understand the student’s course selection strategies, patterns and rationale. Unusual and unexpected course combinations may indicate that the high achiever is engaged in advanced intellectual synthesis and is bridging and personalizing the curriculum in unique ways. It is important to note that the labels often used to identify this group (high-achieving, high-ability, talented and gifted) identify two distinct qualities: innate ability and achievement
For some high achievers, the structure, delivery and coordination of advising resources and services can seem more like an obstacle course than a launching pad. A number of pronounced hazards develop in decentralized, resource constrained advising environments; all are based in a “one size fits all” strategy designed to serve large numbers of students efficiently. The real task and advising challenge is to understand and address the needs and interests of students as individuals. To improve the advising experience for high achievers, a new focus on effective assessment at intake and a fully supported, complex culminating experience that allows for reflection and refinement of goals is needed to direct and support them appropriately.
To better understand the needs of high achieving students and to identify effective strategies for working with this student population, informational interviews were conducted with programs that attract them (The Undergraduate Research Apprentice Program, Global Practice and Poverty Minor, Cal Corps, SMART Mentoring and individuals connected with BMES – Biomedical Engineering Society and Big BEAR). Briefly outlined below are five of the ten strategies identified for working successfully with high achievers.
- Creating Conditions for Lasting Relationships Students seek connections with a known confidante who can share their enthusiasm for learning, push them when necessary, help manage their anxiety to perform and acknowledge their success. At the heart of these relationships is the development of real trust and collaboration. The high achieving student must often reveal their ambitions to a trusted individual in order to realize them – especially when they are creative, unique or in other ways out of the ordinary. This is an exciting process but one that requires vulnerability. Personal history is often a part of the formation of overarching goals and is tightly interwoven with identity. Active, dynamic and responsive relationships that are developed over time best support this process of self-revelation and discovery. If advising is delivered in ways that hinder consistent contact with a known individual, the high achiever may miss the opportunity to make the connections needed to advance their complex goals.
- Supporting Simultaneity Given that high achievers have multiple interests and goals and can excel in a wide range of subjects, the advisor will play a critical role in helping students explore and manage these complex interests and help create meaning and coherence to ambitious, multidimensional plans. Because the student may exhibit unstoppable enthusiasm for all they would like to know, do and produce, a good advising strategy for this group is based in long-term incremental planning. High achievers will need assistance with decision making, prioritizing high impact activities that meet core goals, maximizing use of valuable time, and employing effective course selection strategies that help provide maximum benefit to overall degree progress. A positive “can-do” attitude (with a focus on incremental planning and progress) will effectively support this group. As the desire to work multiple curricular and co-curricular objectives is at the core of the high achievers academic plan, a new schedule-planning tool that allows for complex, long-range academic planning is introduced. This sample tool not only supports simultaneity, it encourages planning for complex, intersecting objectives and introduces questions that support effective assessment at intake and reflection as the plan progresses. See the Simultaneous Scheduler here.
- Minimizing Transaction to Maximize Transformation At times, University policy may seem at odds with the high achievers unique educational plan and objectives. For example, unit limitations, course restrictions, sequencing requirements, limitations on the use of exam and other credit toward requirements, and restrictions that limit access to certain types of curricular and co-curricular opportunities can disrupt or delay individual plans. The student often spends as much time crafting plans to deal with institutional roadblocks as they do demonstrating the high levels of initiative needed to construct unique plans. Ultimately, the advisor is the delivery person of “no” instead of “yes” and the advising interaction is avoided altogether. Instead of reinforcing or even creating roadblocks, the advisor may work to help the student anticipate, plan for and avoid them altogether. It is the advisor’s job with this group to expand, not restrict, opportunities. Long term planning is key to minimizing transaction and facilitating transformation.
- Harnessing the Power of Peers Peer advising (when constructed to include leadership and mentoring activities) appeared to advance the experience of high achievers in four critical ways; word-of-mouth peer networks effectively connect high achievers with programs that meet their unique needs, it facilitates leadership development, helps to create informal but critical cohort formation, and ultimately (in programs with experiential components) expands participation into the unique responsibility of “witness” to complex experience. Involvement with peer programs acts to motive, inspire and help students feel connected to one another and the institution. Advisors may encourage this involvement as a key developmental activity and may want to harness the positive power of peer involvement and influence on decision-making, planning and goal setting.
- Creating Room for Reflection Opportunities for individual and group reflection are often core features of the learning activity in programs that attract high achievers. The opportunity for sounding out experience, sharing and comparing, re-evaluating thoughts and beliefs, and the opportunity to confide and “process” are critical to student development, and ultimately to student success. Ultimately, it is through reflective questioning (guided by advisors and faculty) that the student refines and sharpens their interests, goals and beliefs and the academic experience is greatly deepened and enriched as a result. Guided reflection may also help the student better manage anxiety over decision-making and help them acknowledge progress as they advance toward challenging goals. It is also a key feature of the intellectual and curricular bridging process so vital to helping the student with multiple interests and aptitudes make meaning of their education.
Five Strategies for Program Design and Delivery
6. Guided Learning: The Importance of Recognizable Step Ladders
High achievers are looking for opportunities to build, expand and refine essential skills and knowledge often through engaged scholarship programs. They can be intensely focused on finding ways to apply, test and refine their unique talents on real world challenges. Programs that attract these students facilitate this development through direct and indirect “grooming” exercises; they essentially take the student through an entire developmental process, “tipping” them gently from one difficult task to the next. This activity is related to the concept of “scaffolding” and “guided learning” where learners benefit from support or “scaffolding” as they take on tasks beyond their ability. As they master tasks the scaffolding can be removed and they can complete the same task on their own (Wood, 1976 – Vygotsky, 1978). For example, in the disciplinary based peer mentoring program designed by Eric Jabart, students first gain disciplinary based skills, they are engaged in ways that help them flourish in the academic culture, they write a statement of purpose, create a graduate application, apply for funding, visit their prospective schools, are coached through a first choice and are finally coached in selecting a lab. The mentor/advisor is guiding this complex and multi-layered learning trajectory. Ultimately the goal is not only to gain admission to graduate school but to help the student successfully and confidently transition into a doctoral program. In the Undergraduate Research Apprentice Program, many students may participate by supporting a faculty research project. Juniors may engage in the SURF Fellowship program where they will work on their own summer research project, or become Haas Scholars where they will complete their own research. Participation in each program directly and indirectly guides and supports them through complex activities – and ultimately toward success as more mature scholars able to work independently. Honors and capstone activities also function similarly. In the case of peer leadership programs, students may begin as a team member and end as a team leader. All of these kinds of activities are designed to create developmental milestones and to encourage integration of skills so that ultimately high-level synthesis of experience and knowledge is facilitated.
There is also a more subtle form of guided learning where the progress is internal and values based rather than horizontal and skills based. It occurs in all programs but particularly in those that require fieldwork or in projects in which there are strong ethical dimensions to the work. The gains may be less straightforward but no less significant or important since they are critical to the student’s overall intellectual maturity and personal development. Leadership activities often contain important inwardly guided moments – the student may be confronted with multiple definitions and examples of leadership and they will ultimately have to take from these and develop and internalize their own definition. This is a more values-based than skill-based activity.
Advisors and mentors to high achievers help students easily identify meaningful junctures (as on a step ladder) as they help “tip” them forward through a complex guided learning process and help them double-back and internalize the experience (as the student matures, masters tasks and gains confidence). Programs that support high achievers often clearly mark these guided activities which are so critical to the students overall trajectory. This process is particularly important for the high achiever since it allows them to meaningfully focus on developing key skills and values. Increasing self-confidence, skill development and goal refinement is key to both their intellectual maturity and identity development.
7. The Importance of Specialists and Cross-Functional Teams
The advanced curricular and disciplinary specific needs of high achievers can take advisors out of depth, particularly advisors with generalist training. Many individuals who staff programs that serve high achievers have advanced degrees, training and experience, and many have doctoral degrees and teaching experience; they often act as mentors in delivering programs. Students seek to develop networks of individuals with specialized knowledge and experience; often piecing together for themselves networks of individuals with certain types of expertise. It is not enough for the advisor to suggest that the student “gain research experience” or “leadership experience;” it is critical that they be able to identify best fit for the student in terms of multiple options and choices, describe clearly what the student will gain from the experience and how it will be applied to and advance their unique plan and objectives. In addition, detailed knowledge of the curriculum is critical to effectively direct high achievers. It is not enough to offer a list of course choices, it is important to be able to describe the nuances of these choices to students who have an interest in being especially selective. In programs serving high achievers, there were strong connections between faculty, graduate students, staff with specialized training, and peers; these groups form tightly coordinated, active networks designed to provide service in the development of specific knowledge and skills. This configuration of service based on subject matter expertise (i.e., leadership experience, research experience, pre-graduate advising, etc.) appears to be highly desirable to the high achiever since they can easily identify the specialist group they seek. These networks extend and deepen the breadth and depth of advising knowledge and experience, since the collective knowledge is highly advanced. Use of these matrix, advising teams (faculty + graduate students + specialized staff + peers) appears to rapidly advance the student’s trajectory when focused in a particular knowledge area or skill set.
8. Providing Clarity: Learning Objectives, Strategies, Outcomes
High achieving students are seeking to benefit from activities that help them build essential knowledge and skills relevant to core goals. The more explicit the trajectory and individual gains, the greater the overall benefit to the student. It is, therefore, important for the learning objectives of curricular and co-curricular advising programs to be stated and well understood by both advisors and students. As described by Leah Carroll, in the Office of Undergraduate Research, the student may gain disciplinary based research skills from participation (i.e., coding, bench skills, etc.) and a variety of other skills (i.e., apply standards of academic integrity, present and defend an argument, give a brief idea pitch, et.). However, the additional and possibly even more significant gain for the student is that they are introduced to the academic culture and to the important give-and-take negotiations with a faculty advisor regarding the direction of a project. The closely aligned faculty and staff team that supports the Global Poverty and Practice minor worked together on explicitly stated learning outcomes for their program, making it easier to reinforce these in informal and formal interactions with students at all levels of the program throughout the entire learning and advising experience. When programs are actively constructed around identifiable outcomes, it is easier for the student to identify what is to be gained from participation and to mark their progress as they proceed. Clearly stated learning goals also facilitate formal assessment and a continuous improvement cycle is naturally developed. This kind of programmatic construct and foundation is critical for high achievers as they are looking for the clear benefit of involvement when there are multiple options for engagement. They are always seeking to gain something specific in relation to their goals in terms of knowledge, skills and values and when programs deliver as stated, there is significant advancement of student ability.
9. Prepping, Rotating, Incentivizing: Mentoring the Mentor
Faculty and graduate student mentoring of undergraduates is an important responsibility and new and increasing resources have been directed toward programs that support formal mentoring relationships on the Berkeley campus (i.e., SMART, Chernin, etc.).
Advisors play a critical role in directing high achievers to mentoring programs and in helping them understand the benefits and positive outcomes of mentoring (e.g., opportunity to collaborate, network, gain new knowledge, share ideas, reflect, develop pre-professional skills, gain personal satisfaction, reward and growth) as well as helping them avoid problematic pitfalls (e.g., lack of time, mismatch between mentor/mentee expertise or personality, lack of goals and expectations, and difficulty being observed and handling feedback). The mentoring role is particularly important for high achieving students and the advisor is critical in helping direct students to these important relationships and to managing expectations. In some advanced and specialized advising settings, the staff advisor will act as mentor and these special roles also need to be skillfully introduced and managed.
There are a wide variety of resources available to mentor mentors since the roles and responsibilities associated with mentoring are not the same as they are for teaching in the standard curriculum. The Undergraduate Research Apprentice Program has an established mentoring contract and Eric Jabart utilized mentoring resources from the Center for Teaching and Learning as he launched his own disciplinary based mentoring program in his home department. These and other resources are important to creating the right conditions for high functioning programs and services. As it relates to the needs of high achievers, mentors will also need to be able to identify and adapt coaching styles depending on student ability and goals. Faculty awareness of their mentees’ multiple goals and interests is critical since they, as disciplinary experts, will play a key role in the synthesis and bridging activities needed to create coherence in complex academic and personal plans. Their flexibility, guidance, support and ability to direct is key for the high achiever in particular. Formal mentoring programs are likely to attract high achievers in large numbers and sensitivity to the needs and characteristics of this group is important to meeting them. High achieving undergraduates are also likely to pursue graduate education, and their interactions with faculty and graduate students are likely to play a role in their plans and preparation for advanced study.
Academic and co-curricular programs are often challenged to prepare faculty and incentivize their involvement in advising undergraduates, given that formal faculty rewards structures do not recognize these activities. Graduate students and specialized staff play a critical role in supporting faculty involvement by ensuring the use of faculty time in programs and services is structured and well-coordinated so that it offers maximum benefit to the faculty member and student. Through effective prepping and rotating activities, valuable faculty time is best put to use. As in the case of the structure of the Undergraduate Research Apprentice Program, the incentive for participation is research assistance that may ultimately free faculty time. Again, when the desired outcomes are clear, the use of valuable faculty, graduate student and staff expertise and wisdom can be best put to use.
10. Institutionally Supported Curricular and Experiential Exchange
Just as incentivizing faculty involvement and mentoring is critical to supporting the needs of high achievers, so too is the institutional commitment to offering programs that support curricular and experiential exchange. The high achiever is anxious to apply all that they know into the realm of all they can do and they seek out opportunities for applied and experiential learning. As noted by Sunshine Workman, Cal Corps programs are primarily experiential although the program does benefit from regular faculty involvement. The challenge is of integration and balance, so that the experience supports the curriculum and the curriculum can be applied to experience. Strong programs appear to have equal interchanges that, again, help to create meaning and coherence and bridge the curriculum in important ways. This is particularly important as the student develops a post-baccalaureate plan and as they evaluate the usefulness of their overall education. Programs that support this exchange are no longer resume padding additions to core academics in the minds of many students, as they require significant investments of time and intellectual capital. In addition, the high achiever is likely to be a graduate student in the near future and the need to build capacity for advanced and independent study is greater than ever. The institutional and faculty commitment to creating and formalizing these curricular and experiential exchanges is essentially a commitment to helping high achievers realize their multiple and complex goals.
It is important to remember that all students demonstrated some level of exceptional achievement within the context of their life circumstance to gain admission to UC Berkeley. Students are individuals and each has unique potential. It is, therefore, important for advisors to actively seek, develop and nurture the high achiever qualities in all students.
