Students Needing Academic Alternative Advising: A National Survey

An increasing phenomenon on many campuses has been the inability of some students to continue pursuing the undergraduate academic program they initially selected. While there have always been undecided students and students who change their majors because of personal preferences, there are other students who cannot enter the program of their choice because of increasingly stringent institutional or departmental requirements. Health programs have traditionally used selective admissions, and this policy has filtered into other academic areas. Students caught in this dilemma are different from freshman maiorchangers in that they have made a firm commitment to the programs, have advanced hours, but found their entrance into the desired majors blocked by changing professional requirements both internal and external to their campus.