Academic Advising and Placement

For their first year, students are assigned to faculty advisors through the Office of the Dean of Studies. Advisors and advisees establish contact with one another in early summer to help guide course selection for the fall. Advisors meet with students during the orientation period and assist students during the period when courses may be added or dropped from the students’ schedules. During the second, third, or fourth semester, when students may elect a major, they will move under direct advisorship of a major department. Department chairs designate academic advisors for their majors. Students must select a major before choosing courses for their junior year.

Faculty advisors are urged to use Colby’s 10 educational precepts as a framework for conversations with their advisees. Faculty advisors, class deans, coaches of athletic teams in which a student participates, and the student’s parent(s)* are notified when students receive warnings from instructors or are placed on academic probation. [* Parents are notified after a student receives two warnings in a semester.]

Placement in Mathematics
Any first-year student intending to take mathematics at Colby must fill out the Calculus placement questionnaire available on the Mathematics Department website. Additionally, any first-year student intending to take a 200-level mathematics course in their first semester must consult with the chair of the Mathematics Department.

Placement in Foreign Languages
Students wishing to continue the study of a foreign language at Colby are encouraged to take the College Board SAT Subject Test in that language. The results are used to place the student at the appropriate level. Guidelines for placement in foreign language study are included in the course selection information available to members of the incoming first-year class.

If a student has not taken the SAT Subject Test and wishes to continue studying a language, he or she will be placed on the basis of a required placement exam given online in early summer (for French and Spanish) or during the orientation period for new students (for other languages). Students who have earned a grade of 4 or 5 on an Advanced Placement examination, a 6 or 7 in an International Baccalaureate higher-level exam, or a 7 on an International Baccalaureate standard-level exam may be eligible for placement in upper-level language courses.

Students who have had two or more years of language study may enroll in the first semester of the elementary course of that language only if the appropriate department determines that their preparation is not adequate for a more advanced level.

Placement for students in languages for which no College Board test is available is determined by consultation with the appropriate department.