UGA students are very well-prepared. The Class of 2026 posted an average high school GPA of 4.12, an average ACT score of 32, and an average SAT score of 1384. Often such high-achieving students have never experienced any kind of failure. But the demanding pace of a research institution like UGA often poses significant and unexpected challenges for our students. Our Academic Coaching program provides direct, differentiated assistance for students as they navigate college, overcome whatever challenges they encounter, achieve academic success, and ultimately graduate. Helping our students cultivate a productive academic mindset is an important part of this process.
Housed within the Division of Academic Enhancement, Academic Coaching offers UGA students the opportunity to meet with certified and trained Academic Coaches to discuss their pathways to success. Coaching empowers students to identify their strengths, explore evidence-based study strategies, reflect on their own learning, and ultimately develop a growth mindset.
Typically, the coach and student work together over four sessions to create a strategic learning plan—one that lays the groundwork for awareness of what strategies and practices will be necessary for success in UGA’s academic environment.
Academic Coaching also plays a crucial role in our new Connect & Complete Persistence Framework which is a set of academic policies for undergraduate students in academic difficulty. The goal of Connect & Complete is to provide timely intervention to prevent students from being dismissed. When those who are dismissed return to the university, they have a degree completion team that includes an Academic Coach, along with their advisor and a case worker from Student Care and Outreach to formulate a success plan.
Over the last year, advisors across campus, as well as staff in the Disability Resource Center and the Graduate School, have expressed interest in Academic Coaching. Because an impact study in 2018 found an average increase of 0.73 in term GPA for students who participated in Academic Coaching, the University of Georgia is making a significant financial investment to train more advisors and staff to become certified Academic Coaches.
Our last impact study was in 2018; we will produce another one during fall 2023 and put this study on a two-year cycle to continue to measure its impact.
The 2018 impact study found an average increase of 0.73 in term GPA for students who participated in Academic Coaching
We use InsideTrack Training and Development to provide foundational and advanced levels of training and certification for coaches. As student interest in coaching increases, we need to significantly increase the number of coaches and trainers to meet student demand. We provided foundational training to 20 additional coaches during Fall 2023, 12 of whom are engaged in nine additional months of training to become InsideTrack certified student coaches. Of the 12 certified student coaches, five will become certified as coaching trainers by the end of Fall 2024, allowing us to rapidly expand our coaching capacity
We will examine our previous impact study and modify it as needed to produce a new impact study during fall 2024. While we had initially planned this process to occur during fall 2023 significant shifts in professional staff necessitated that we delay this study to fall 2024. This year we will also create an assessment tool to measure the impact of coaches.Potential challenges may include continued engagement by academic coaches, increased student demand for academic coaching, retention of trained academic coaching (staff and graduate assistants).
Potential challenges may include continued engagement by academic coaches, increased student demand for academic coaching, retention of trained academic coaching (staff and graduate assistants).
