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Student success plans are a useful tool that enables students to establish and work toward academic, career, and personal goals in a structured and strategic way.
Higher education institutions are increasingly focused on building student success strategies that maximize a student’s chances of completing their studies successfully. This is smart for the university, since it’s easier and less expensive to retain students than to recruit them. It’s also in the best interests of students, helping them get the greatest return on the time and money they invest in their education. One powerful tool in these efforts is the student success plan.
So what is a student success plan? Keep reading to discover Enrollify’s take on how this tool works, how you can develop one, and how it helps students reach their full potential.
What Is a Student Success Plan?
Let’s begin with a brief student success plan definition. A student success plan is a document that articulates a student’s academic, career, and personal goals and outlines a plan to achieve them. Though student success plans often follow a similar format, the content is highly personalized to the individual student.
The document is usually the result of collaboration between a student and an academic advisor, career services staff member, or similar support person. Occasionally, parents or guardians may also be involved in drafting the plan.
Why Are Student Success Plans Important?
All students, even those well-prepared for independent learning, can benefit more from their college experience by thinking ahead and creating a plan.
A student success plan provides structure, directing students’ attention to the key areas they should consider when envisioning their academic journey. The plan also creates clarity. In an easily digestible form, it captures where the student wants to go and the steps they’ll need to take to get there.
Student success plans also help develop habits that will serve the student long after graduation, like goal setting and strategic time management. Finally, when used effectively, they help students build confidence that they can identify the outcomes they desire and move toward them intentionally.
Key Components of a Student Success Plan
Here are some of the key elements of how a student success plan is constructed.
Academic Goals
Perhaps the most obvious part of a student success plan relates to academics. Students need to clearly identify what they hope to achieve through their studies. To be useful, goals should always be specific and measurable. Examples could include reaching a specific grade point average, completing a degree by a target date, or gaining competence in a particular area—such as a foreign language or advanced mathematics.
Career Exploration
Student success plans are typically created in the first year of studies. At this point, many students aren’t sure about their career path. One of the key areas a success plan covers is the steps a student can take to gain career clarity.
This begins with some self-knowledge. Students should identify their interests, skills, values, and other variables that may affect their career choices. Then, they can identify steps they will take to explore possible careers as they narrow their focus. These steps could include researching industries, shadowing professionals, and securing internships.
Doing this sort of work as early as possible will help students be more strategic in their choice of major and courses.
Personal Development
In addition to academics and career, a student success plan should also lay out goals for personal development. Here, students can consider the capacities and traits that are important for success in their studies, the workplace, and other life goals.
Possibilities here include self-awareness, emotional intelligence, resilience, and interpersonal skills. These skills are not only sought by employers, they also contribute to managing stress, building successful relationships, and maintaining a healthy work/life balance.
Parental and Teacher Involvement
Though a student success plan is typically created by academic support staff and a student working together, input from others increases the chances of formulating a successful plan.
Professors, for example, can provide useful insights and observations about a student’s strengths and weaknesses as well as guidance about setting realistic goals. Parents or other family members can also play a vital role. They are key sources of emotional support who can provide encouragement when students face setbacks and celebrate when they hit their goals.
Collaboration between the student, support staff, parents, and professors ensures the success plan adequately addresses the student’s unique needs.
Steps to Develop an Effective Student Success Plan
The process for developing student success plans vary, but here is one way other institutions approach it.
Assess the Student’s Needs
Start with a holistic picture of the student. Their goals are obviously crucial, but also often the easiest thing to identify. What can be harder to see are the characteristics of the student that will color how the goals should be approached.
For instance, do they struggle with notetaking, taking exams, or have other academic challenges? What about learning styles? Does the student do better with lectures or discussion-based courses? What kinds of emotional or personal needs will impact their studies?
At this stage, it is particularly helpful to consult parents, professors, and guidance counselors to get an accurate idea of the student’s needs. It’s also important to continue to evaluate these areas going forward, as a student’s needs can change.
Set Measurable Goals
We mentioned this above, but it’s worth reiterating here. To serve their purpose, goals need to be specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (aka SMART goals). This removes all the guesswork for students about what it means to achieve their goals and how to track their progress over time.
Compare, for instance, these two goals:
- Do well in my calculus class.
- Turn in all assignments on time and score above 90% on the final exam in my calculus class.
The first is hopelessly vague, while the second yields clear action steps and metrics to assess success.
In addition to being measurable, it helps when goals are manageable. Students should be encouraged to break down major goals into smaller ones. Being able to cross items off the list more quickly helps students build momentum and confidence.
Design Personalized Strategies
Strategies are the particular tools and approaches students will use to achieve their goals. For example, if a goal is to complete all assignments on time, a corresponding strategy might be to use a calendar to schedule fixed blocks of time for assignment work each week.
Strategies can include study techniques, time management tools, support systems, practices, and more. They should be tailored to the individual student’s goals, needs, personality, and circumstances. What works well for one person won’t necessarily work well for another. They should also be flexible, allowing adjustments based on the student’s experiences in using them as well as on evolving needs.
AI-enabled student success platforms are revolutionizing this aspect of plan design and implementation. Students can receive real-time notifications of announcements, reminders, and actions through SMS and email to improve “time blindness” and forgetfulness. These platforms centralize campus resources, which saves students time and removes barriers to task completion. Faculty and advisors can also see a student’s progress across several areas and intervene if a student begins to veer off-track.
Monitor and Review Progress
All of these steps, important as they are, will lead nowhere unless there is an intentional process in place to return periodically to the plan. This can be incorporated, for instance, into a regular meeting with an academic advisor.
How should the review work? It’s helpful to gather two types of data when reviewing a success plan. One kind is quantitative (for instance, grades, credits completed, etc.). It’s also important to include qualitative data. What feedback is the student getting from teachers? How does the student feel the plan is going?
Consistent assessments will allow students to see and celebrate progress, notice and respond to missed targets, and, if necessary, make adjustments to goals or strategies.
Benefits of Student Success Plans
Student success plans are well worth the effort to implement. For students, they help them identify their academic, career, and personal goals and create a clear roadmap for achieving them. They also increase a sense of ownership and motivation, which improves their chances of success.
The plans benefit institutions, too. Student success plans help schools effectively achieve their primary mission of giving students the tools and preparation they need for success after graduation. They also improve retention, which contributes to an institution’s financial health and long-term sustainability.
Tips on How to Get Started with Student Success Plans
According to the most recent annual survey from the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center, retention rates in higher ed are the best they’ve been in a decade. This is evidence that greater investments in student success, including the use of student success plans, are paying off.
If your institution doesn’t yet use student success plans, here are some tips on how you can get started.
- Assess current practices: Begin by examining what you already do. What resources exist to help students identify goals and plan to achieve them? Build on what is already working.
- Set clear objectives: Create your own success plan for your department. What are you hoping to accomplish by using student success plans? What measurable outcomes will you pursue?
- Get input from stakeholders: Provide opportunities for all stakeholders (faculty, other departments, and especially leadership) to learn about what you’re doing and provide their insights. You’ll increase buy-in and uncover helpful perspectives that will make the end result stronger.
- Design a template and process: You’ll want a standard form and process for completing a student success plan. Don’t reinvent the wheel on this step: learn from other institutions that already use student success plans.
- Create a timeline for implementation: Set a realistic goal and detailed steps for how and when you’ll implement student success plans, including the necessary training so they can be used effectively.
Conclusion
All higher ed institutions want to see their students thrive. As in most areas of organizational life, intentionality is the key to better results. A student success plan is a powerful tool that enables students and the staff who serve them to create a vision and strategy that maximizes their time at college.
A well-designed plan that includes measurable goals, is tailored to individual needs, and is referred to and updated periodically, will greatly increase student retention and the chances that each student will achieve their academic, career, and personal goals. Whether your institution already uses student success plans or is just beginning to consider them, any step you can take in using them more widely and strategically is a smart investment in the long-term health of both your students and your school.
Frequently Asked Questions
How often should a student review or update their success plan?
To get the most benefit from it, students should review their success plan at least once a semester. The best time to do this is while planning courses and other activities for the next semester. This is also a great occasion to make updates, if necessary.
Can success plans help students with learning disabilities?
Student success plans are very helpful for students with learning disabilities. They provide a structured way to articulate their unique needs and identify appropriate resources to meet them.
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