How to get started with group academic advising sessions

Are you overwhelmed by the sheer number of students you need to advise each semester? You’re not alone! 

As an advisor, you face the challenge of seeing hundreds of students who need help with:

• Picking the right major
• Staying on track academically
• Navigating tricky situations with financial aid and housing
• Managing mental health

Some topics require advising to be tailored to each student's individual needs, and call for personalized, one-on-one attention and privacy. 

But here’s a little secret: not every meeting needs to be one-on-one!

There are so many situations in which group advising is perfect, letting you share important information with multiple students, all while saving time and building a tight-knit community. 

In this article, we’ll show you how group sessions can help you tackle common advising challenges and walk you through the simple steps to get started. 

How group advising boosts student success

Group advising sessions aren’t just a way to save time—they’re a chance to build connections, encourage collaboration, and create a supportive community that drives student success. 

They’ll let you:

• Reach more students: With group sessions, you can connect with more students than you could through individual meetings. This means more students get the guidance they need without overloading your calendar.

• Build connections between students: Group sessions allow students to meet others who are in the same boat. When students hear questions and concerns from their peers, they realize they’re not alone, which can be incredibly reassuring. Plus, they can support and even learn from each other, not just from you!

• Encourage social learning: According to social learning theory, students often learn best when talking things through with their peers. Group advising creates a space where students can share tips, experiences, and advice, helping each other along the way. It’s like turning your session into a mini-community of support! 

• Make 1:1 meetings less intimidating: For some students, a one-on-one meeting with an advisor can be a little scary. They might want to get a sense of what advising is like without the pressure of all the attention being on them. But after they’ve met you in a group setting, they’ll likely feel more at ease reaching out for individual help later on!

Types of academic advising sessions that are great for groups

Group advising sessions are often proactive, rather than reactive, and are great for situations where you need to share information that’s relevant to many students. Think:

• First-year orientation programs
• Introduction to Campus Services
• Study tips and strategies 
• Mental health signposting
• Study abroad info sessions
• Financial aid options

These sessions are more efficient and engaging than handing out flyers or directing students to websites. Plus, they lighten your load, freeing up time for those one-on-one meetings where individual attention is crucial.

So, how do you get started scheduling them?

A step-by-step guide to setting up group advising sessions

Gone are the days of using a paper sign-up sheet on the department door. If you already use scheduling software for higher education like YouCanBookMe, setting up a booking page for group sessions will be a piece of cake! 🎂

Step one—Create your booking page

To kick off your group advising sessions, you’ll need to create a new booking page. 

To do so, log into your YouCanBookMe dashboard and click “Create a new booking page” in the upper right-hand corner.

A pop-up will appear, letting you quickly set your availability and meeting lengths.

After you click “Next step,” it’s time to add an image, title your booking page, and set a location for meetings. 

You can change any of these settings and customize your booking page further by clicking the pencil ✎ icon on your dashboard.  

Step two—Customize your booking page 

Click that pencil icon we just showed you above, and let’s get started customizing your booking page! 

YouCanBookMe can essentially be tailored to fit your exact needs, so you’ll see many different options once you start editing your page.

Here are a few customizations we suggest to get started:

1. Be sure to update the introduction text to let students know this will be a group session and what it will cover.
2. Decide how long you want each session to be and when it will happen. You can create a one-off event using the fixed date feature, or you can have rolling sessions that happen as often as you need throughout the year.
3. Do you want to add more than one type of group session to your booking page? Head over to “Appointment types” under “Additional options” to add them. 

Step three—Turn on group bookings

If you want to offer group sessions, you can’t forget this crucial step—turning on group bookings. 

Group bookings let up to 50 people sign up for the same time slot. As a bonus, they work just as well for both in-person and online sessions!

How do you turn them on? 👉 Just set the number of people you want to allow for every meeting. Your booking page will display that time slot as available and keep accepting bookings until it reaches the set limit.

As a bonus, YouCanBookMe offers even more flexibility for group sessions! You can either assign one 'seat' per booking or let students choose how many seats they need. This option is automatically added to your booking form, making it easy for students to bring a friend or family member if they’d like.

Step 4—Adding automated notifications 

Once you click on “Additional options” and “Notifications” in your booking page settings, you will see a screen filled with different notification types and a “Popular notifications” menu where you can quickly select the notification you want to send.

For student advising, we recommend setting up these three types of notifications:

1. Confirmations—After your students book a session, make sure to send a confirmation email so they have all the info they need in one place.
   
   Add the time and date, location or link for the virtual meeting, how long it will last, and what you'll be covering in your email. If there’s anything the students need to bring—like a financial aid form, resume, or career survey—give them a quick reminder to have it ready!
2. Reminders—Your students are busy. Between classes, extracurricular activities, and part-time jobs, they might need a friendly nudge about their upcoming group session so they don’t forget. Reminder emails will be crucial in reducing no-shows and bringing students up to speed.
   
   Be sure to include your contact info in case of any last-minute questions. Remember to add the time and place of the meeting, and if it’s online, drop in the link, too. This way, students won’t have to search through old emails to find what they need!
   
   

   Pro tip 💡Afraid your emails will get lost in your students’ crowded inbox? You can opt to send text reminders to cut through the noise.

3. Follow-up emails—These will be crucial in helping drive student success, as they let you keep the momentum and support going even after your meeting ends. You can use them to:

• Invite students to book a one-on-one session with you after a group meeting
• Promote other relevant group sessions
• Send helpful resources
• Check-in to make sure the student is on track

Step 5—Set up your booking form

Booking forms are handy for asking important questions before student advising sessions, ensuring every meeting is as productive as possible.

You can ask for anything, starting with basics such as name and contact info, to more in-depth details such as:

• What do you need help with?
• What are your goals for this semester?
• How can we best support you?

To edit your booking form, simply click on “Booking form” under “Additional options” and customize the questions you want to include!

Managing bookings for group advising sessions

Taking more than one booking in each time slot might initially seem challenging, but don’t worry—it’s easy. 

Everything is organized in your work calendar, and you can make any adjustments you need right there, too! 

Yep, no need to log into your account to make changes. 👏

How to manage group sessions in your calendar

In your calendar, every booking will be listed as a different event, so you’ll be able to easily see who is coming. And if you allowed students to book multiple seats, the booking data export will include how many they took! 

You can even mark a student as a no-show, and trigger emails specific to a student who missed their appointment directly from your calendar event or from your emails. 

This is an easy way to track student attendance, especially for mandatory advising sessions. 

If you ever need to reduce the number of people who can attend a session, or cancel it altogether, you can do that by adding a simple phrase directly into your calendar. 

How to manage group sessions on your bookings dashboard

Your bookings dashboard gives you additional options to adjust your meetings. You can:

• Edit the number of spaces that a student has chosen if needed
• Automatically rebook a student for a future session while you’re speaking with them
• Customize your notifications to confirm the number of seats a student has reserved in all your emails. The number will automatically be added to both calendar events.

Streamline student support with group advising

Group academic advising sessions can be an efficient and effective way to ensure that students have access to the information they need. 

Whenever your advising is proactive and the information is generally the same for everyone in the session, consider using group sessions to save time and give students opportunities to interact with you and others in a different way.

Organizing group advising sessions is easy with an online scheduling tool designed for higher education.

Why not try creating a group session today? We’re positive your students will love the initiative.