New Student Orientation: Launching Success
The transition to college presents a major challenge in a student's life. It requires leaving behind familiar routines and learning to navigate an unfamiliar environment with new social norms, academic expectations, and personal independence. Many first-year students struggle with this shift and some ultimately leave college without completing their first year.
New student orientation plays a critical role in a successful transition by introducing students to available resources, setting institutional expectations, and fostering early community building. Research shows that new student orientation has a profound impact on student success and retention rates.
Whether they are online or on campus, traditional or non-traditional, first-time or transfer, a well-structured orientation sets the foundation for students to persist and succeed.
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The goals of new student orientation:
SUPPORT SERVICES
Access key institutional supports
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Financial aid
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Mental health
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Academic supports
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Library services
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IT and tech services
ACADEMIC GUIDANCE
Guiding course selections and educational pathways
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Academic advising
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Degree mapping
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Course registration
CAMPUS EXPECTATIONS
Standards for a safe community
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Campus safety
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Code of conduct
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Consent and Title IX
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Emergency prepartion
COMMUNITY AND BELONGING
Connecting with peers & campus life
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Social orientation
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Peer connections
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Student life activities
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Clubs and Organizations
Prolonged Approach: From Orientation to First-Year-Experience FYE)
Orientation is vital for student success, but subjecting incoming students to volumes of new information can be ineffective. Students arrive on campus already overwhelmed by the transition, and may not be ready to appreciate what they will need later in the year. Consequently, higher education institutions are increasingly moving away from a single one- or two-day orientation event to a prolonged, phased approach.
To operationalize this shift, the Community College Research Center (CCRC) promotes the Ask-Connect-Inspire-Plan (ACIP) framework—an innovative onboarding approach designed to help students build momentum over their first weeks in college. With a core objective of improving student retention, the ACIP model drives engagement by helping students achieve clarity about their academic and career goals, connecting them with faculty, alumni, peers, and employers, and guiding them to design a comprehensive educational plan.
A Prolonged Orientation Model: Penn State Altoona
Penn State Altoona distributes new student onboarding across a three-phased initiative led collaboratively:
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New Student Orientation: Held prior to the term, this phase focuses on foundational steps: introducing campus resources, establishing initial academic goals, and building the first-semester course schedule.
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Welcome Week: Spanning the first several weeks of the semester, this phase provides a flexible "choose-your-own-adventure" model that lets students engage with campus culture, peer networks, and student organizations at their own pace.
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First-Year Seminar (FYS): Required for all incoming students, this semester-long credit course anchors the onboarding process. It provides sustained engagement with faculty while addressing critical success areas such as financial literacy, wellness, self-awareness, and long-term academic and career planning.
By extending orientation into the academic term, Penn State Altoona ensures information is delivered when students are ready to apply it—building early momentum and long-term institutional connection.
Non-Traditional Students Orientation
For historically underserved and non-traditional student populations—including first-generation students, racial and ethnic minorities, adult learners, transfer students, and commuters—new student orientation serves as a critical bridge to college success. Much more than just an administrative "welcome week," targeted orientation programs for non-traditional learners directly influence new student persistance, academic self-efficacy, and a sense of belonging, critical elements in student retention.
Demystifying the "Hidden Curriculum"
First-gen students often experience a culture gap regarding academic jargon, financial aid processes, credit hours, and faculty interaction expectations. Targeted orientations can impactfully
decode this hidden curriculum.
Inclusion of dedicated family orientation tracks provides non-college-educated parents with actionable ways to support their student, directly mitigating feelings of home-versus-campus value conflict.
decode this hidden curriculum.
Integration and Inclusion
Studies consistently show that minority students who feel a strong social and academic connection during orientation are significantly more likely to persist to their second year. Targeted orientation cohorts, such as identity-based bridge programs or multicultural welcome tracks validate students' lived experiences and reduce imposter phenomenon. Structured orientation activities that integrate institutional leaders emphasizing inclusion help improve retention rates
Practical and Flexible
Adult learners, student parents, and veterans have distinct needs from traditional 18-year-old residential freshmen. Non-traditional students prioritize time management, career alignment, childcare support, and evening/online academic support. Specialized orientation equips them with concrete operational roadmaps. Hybrid or online orientation models allow adult learners juggling full-time jobs or family obligations to digest critical institutional information at their own pace.
Orientation Best Practices
Extend Beyond a Single Event
Transitioning from a 1-2 day event to a welcome series or longer first-year-experience (FYE) maintains momentum and provides longer term support.
Incorporate Advising
Don't wait for your freshman students to set up advising meetings, include advising as part of the orientation program. Advisors will establish a relationship with incoming students, help them develop a plan and see their own path for success.
Peer Mentorship
Coupling incoming students with more senior peers is a powerful support tool. Upperclassmen mentors offer authentic lived experience, social validation, and real-time guidance on navigating campus life. It promotes community building and is especially valuable to students from underserved populations.
Campus Incorporation
Student success and retention hinges on the development of relationships throughout the institution, with faculty, advisors, librarians, tutors, student affairs professionals, the financial aid staff, mental health counselors, and administrative staff. Inviting these personnel to participate in orientation programming encourages a full-campus integration, creates a broader institutional commitment to student success, and helps incoming students to feel welcomed and oriented on campus from day 1.
Gamify the Experience
Engaging and fun games could boost engagement, support community building, and improve orientation outcomes. Scavenger hunt in groups throughout campus to find key offices, resources, and personnel is one example of how gamifying the experience can have outsized impact.
Continuous Program Calibration
Ensure a regular feedback loop to assess the effectivity of the orientation program and implement updates at regular intervals. Conduct immediate post-orientation feedback survey to gauge the student experience with recurring retrospective check ins at regular intervals (end of the semester, year, end, data analysis of orientation impact).
--> Extend Beyond a Single Event
Transitioning from a 1-2 day event to a welcome series or longer first-year-experience (FYE) maintains momentum and provides longer term support.
Orientation Best Practices
--> Incorporate Advising
Don't wait for your freshman students to set up advising meetings, include advising as part of the orientation program. Advisors will establish a relationship with incoming students, help them develop a plan and see their own path for success.
--> Peer Mentorship
Coupling incoming students with more senior peers is a powerful support tool. Upperclassmen mentors offer authentic lived experience, social validation, and real-time guidance on navigating campus life. It promotes community building and is especially valuable to students from underserved populations.
--> Campus Incorporation
Student success and retention hinges on the development of relationships throughout the institution, with faculty, advisors, librarians, tutors, student affairs professionals, the financial aid staff, mental health counselors, and administrative staff. Inviting these personnel to participate in orientation programming encourages a full-campus integration, creates a broader institutional commitment to student success, and helps incoming students to feel welcomed and oriented on campus from day 1.
Gamify the Experience
Engaging and fun games could boost engagement, support community building, and improve orientation outcomes. Scavenger hunt in groups throughout campus to find key offices, resources, and personnel is one example of how gamifying the experience can have outsized impact.
--> Program Assessment and Continuous Improvement
Ensure a regular feedback loop to assess the effectivity of the orientation program and implement updates at regular intervals. Conduct immediate post-orientation feedback survey to gauge the student experience with recurring retrospective check ins at regular intervals (end of the semester, year, end, data analysis of orientation impact).
Online Student Orientation
The share of online learners in higher education is constantly growing. But while enrollments are up, it masks a reality in which these students are at an increased risk of stopping out. Online students are more commonly non-traditional-- adult learners, first-generation students, and caregivers-- who need to balance multiple family and personal obligations at once. Moreover, many of them are enrolled part-time, a status which research shows is more prone to lower persistence rates. While online students are more likely to face significant obstacles, they are also lacking sufficient opportunities to build a community and develop a sense of belonging, crucial elements for retention.
While there is no scholarly consensus on what an online student orientation should look like, it is nonetheless clear that an effective onboarding experience is vital to the online learner’s success. And yet, a new student orientation for online students is not commonly required, and a recent study by Quality Matters found that only about a third of surveyed institutions adapted their orientation to the unique needs of online students.
In-person or virtual?
What is the preferred format for an online student orientation? Virtual orientations remove barriers to access and thus increase participation, providing online learners with the flexibility they need. Online learning modules can be completed at an individual pace, while synchronous meetings can assist the formation of social connections.
While most institutions hold the orientation for distance learners virtually, and often synchronically, some institutions opt for an on-campus experience. While acknowledging the challenges involved in bringing online student to campus, scholars argue that these could show better results over virtual introductions. They provide an opportunity to ensure that students have the technology and access they need for classes, build connections with key personnel such as faculty, advisors, and support staff, and more easily build a community with peers.
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VISUAL GUIDES • RESOURCES • GUIDANCE • VISUAL GUIDES • RESOURCES • GUIDANCE
Navigate Your Path
- Map out your primary academic milestones and support networks.
- Identify key departmental resources and visual learning environments.
- Establish clear communication channels with your success advisors.
- Engage with digital repositories for all visual learning guides.