General Information

In accordance with SACS guidelines, ACC has Faculty Advising. The goal is for full-time faculty to advise students who have declared a major that is taught by the faculty member. For most of us, that means that we will be advising no more than a few dozen students, if that. Saad, however, gets to advise about 500. Fortunately, the college has provided a number of on-line resources to assist in this process.

These on-line resources can be found by going to ACC’s homepage and clicking on “Faculty and Staff Login”, then selecting “Faculty Online Services”. Using your ACCeID name and password, you will then be able to get into the system (this is, by the way, the exact same way you submit grades or look at your class rosters). Among the links offered, choose “Student Advising”. It will then ask you to enter the student’s ID or Social Security Number. You will now be able to access the student’s records.

At this point, you should be able to see the following information about the student:

1. Name

2. Academic Standing

3. GPA

4. TSI status (described below)

5. Academic programs they may be actively pursuing

6. Holds on their records

7. Other colleges attended

8. Who else they have been advised by and when

9. Course they have taken and received a grade for

10. Courses they are currently enrolled in

TSI stands for Texas Success Initiative. Despite its Orwellian name, the TSI assessment actually serves a beneficial purpose. It evaluates whether a student is prepared for college-level work. If not, then they are required to take Developmental Education courses to address their areas of academic weakness.

Students in some workforce certificate programs do not need to meet TSI standards, but this would not apply to any discipline in our area. A number of students are exempted from the TSI for other reasons, however. A student is exempted from TSI requirements if they:

1. Earned a college degree

2. Received qualifying scores on the ACT or SAT (within five years), TAAS, or TAKS (within three years)

3. Previously attended any institution and were determined to have met the readiness standards by that institution

4. Transferred to ACC with college credit from out of state or private Texas college that satisfy the core curriculum in the ACC college catalog and passed with a grade of C or better

5. Were honorably discharged, retired, or released from active duty, Texas National Guard, or military reserves on or after August 1, 1990

6. Currently serve on active duty as members of the U.S. armed forces and have been serving for at least three years preceding enrollment

Some other points to note (according to the college catalog):

1. Students who take and fail an approved test for TSI before coming to ACC must take the COMPASS test. They should see an advisor about this.

2. Students whose test scores indicate that they need two or more developmental courses must meet with an ACC counselor before they register for their first term in order to develop a TSI plan and an educational and a support service plan.

3. TSI students must complete their TSI requirements to graduate from any associate degree program or any certificate program having at least 43 or more semester hours.

4. TSI students who do not pass all parts of the state-approved test must enroll and participate in Developmental Education courses in their area(s) of academic weakness and follow ACC’s Developmental Plan until they satisfy their TSI requirements.

5. TSI students who do not comply with the state Developmental Education requirements and ACC’s Developmental Plan will be withdrawn from all college-level courses with a grade of W for that semester.

Frequently, questions will come up about scores on math achievement tests. In these situations, the ACC Mathematics Advising Information page is a handy resource.