Working with high-achievers can be immensely satisfying: they are the students most likely to live out their advisors' ideals of the academic life. At the same time, these students present special challenges. Because they have such potential, it takes knowledge, research, and creativity to serve them well. Further, although they come to college with the same developmental needs as other students, those needs can be hidden behind their confident surface of accomplishment. Their abilities may set them up for perfectionism, social isolation, identity foreclosure or diffusion-problems that become evident only in crisis. Thus, advisors who work with high achievers need both a thorough knowledge of the opportunities open to these students and the sensitivity to support them through realization of these opportunities. How can advisors prepare for such challenges?

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high achieving, academic support, advising approaches, Marion Schwartz

High achievers characteristically appear to know what they are doing and where they are going. But this is often far from the truth. Many honors students have been programmed and pushed from so many different directions that they hardly know what to study and what they really want to do with their lives....From my perspective, I see the work of advisors as helping these students break away from parental influence so they can find their own desires and professions. Advising high achievers is something like training a thoroughbred. Here are some suggestions I hope will be helpful.

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proactive advising, build relationships, high achieving, honors, stress, academic support, student motivation, advising strategy, advising approaches, parental involvement, encouraging students, Joan Digby

Students may seek a mentor for various reasons...The ethics of referring students requires a careful balance between taking the students’ articulated interests seriously and at the same time nudging them towards new ways to grow.

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high achieving, honors, Marion Schwartz

Light (2001) tells us that one of the most important things advisors can do is encourage students to participate in activities outside of the classroom. What would it look like if advisors took it a step further and organized activities designed specifically for high achieving students?

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high achieving, honors, Haley Holmes

Staff at WKU Owensboro have found success by strategically using all resources available rather than searching for a single silver bullet solution to challenges.  This arsenal approach allows student engagement in a distinctive way from the beginning of their experiences with WKU in the areas of recruitment and pre-admission advising, through retention and graduation, and beyond as community members.

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high achieving, admissions, community relationships, student motivation, advising strategy, advising approaches, academic support, Chelsea Martin, Hannah King, David Powers

With the expansion of China’s higher education since 1998, more and more academic advisors are needed to work with Chinese undergraduates.  Understanding their sophisticated social culture values is the first and necessary step for advisors in and out of China.

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communication, high achieving, honors, advising theory, cultural capital, cultural differences, preparedness, advising strategy, advising approaches, encouraging students, Yisi Zhan

When not addressed, shame can be a saboteur silently leading students away from an institution.

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retention, empathy, communication, advisor competencies, high achieving, role of advisor, academic support, advising theory, student motivation, encouraging students, disabilities, Tanya Wineland