MAP: The SMS advisory program
Posted September 28, 2012
One of the many ways Saint Mary’s School prepares our students for success is our advisory program, known as MAP. An acronym for My Achievement Plan, the MAP advisory program is a critical element in the Saint Mary’s experience. What is the MAP advisory program, exactly?
It is a small group of students with one advisor getting to know each other. It is the advisor working with an individual student to fulfill her potential in all areas of academics and campus life. It is any number of adults helping to guide her talents in useful directions. It is the academic support team and others providing educational moments for larger groups of students at assemblies, as well as focused, small-group discussions about the honor code and the student-parent handbook. MAP advisory is a shared chapel experience; it is individual conferences; it is working with each student to make a four-year plan for her SMS experience, and to update it regularly.
Staying in regular communication with students and parents is an important part of the MAP advisory program. Student advisors act as the main point of contact and are a valuable resource to parents. Mid-quarter reports provide parents, and students, with a snapshot of their daughters’ academic progress after the first four weeks of school. Advisors meet with students to discuss their successes and challenges in the context of developing effective strategies. Mid-quarter reports are available to parents to review via our Parent Portal on the Saint Mary’s School website. Advisors also go over these reports with parents during meetings scheduled for Parents Day.
In addition to the support and guidance provided individually to students through our MAP advisory program, we also work with Naviance, a valuable resource for SMS families for both MAP advisory information and college counseling resources. This powerful tool holds our MAP advisory records; provides access to access to free, online standardized test preparation review and practice tests; complete learning style inventories, personality inventories, and career interest profiles. It also allows students to search for academic enrichment, scholarship and summer program information; and much more.
Another component of the MAP advisory program is providing students with the opportunity to address the SMS community during assembly to share their experiences with a variety of extra-curricular and co-curricular programs, such as the role of independent studies, online courses, exchange programs and other school sponsored travel, and more.
Saint Mary’s School is proud of the strong relationships formed between advisors, students and parents through our MAP advisory program. It is these relationships and the tools we offer to students and parents, such as Naviance, that help Saint Mary’s School achieve our mission of educating students for college and life.
By, Thomas Mueller, dean of academics & faculty and Dawn Davis, Ph.D., director of academic & counseling support
