Yale College urges all members of the faculty to make themselves available to advise. “College advisers,” in particular, advise pre-major students in the residential college with which the faculty member is affiliated. Contact the dean or head of your residential college for information on how to become a college adviser, or, if you were not assigned to a residential college, contact Deanna Caplan, senior administrative assistant to the Council of Heads of College.

In addition to their college adviser, first-year students are advised within their residential colleges by the residential college dean and a first-year (peer) counselor (colloquially called a “FroCo”). They may also schedule remote advising sessions during the summer before matriculation, in relation to course selection and other academic or residential college matters. Incoming transfer and Eli Whitney (non-traditional) students benefit from similar advising arrangements.

Advising videos, featuring faculty and deans in Yale College, give students overviews of certain subjects of instruction and address key topics, such as bachelor's degree requirements, distributional requirements, and course selection in one's first year.

Information about advising for first-years and sophomores is available on the Advising Resources website, especially in the Your Adviser and Advising section; information aimed at college advisers is available in the For Advisers section.

As an instructor, you may find that you wish or need to contact a student’s adviser about that student’s performance in your course. The student’s residential college dean—not the college adviser or FroCo—should be your first point of contact in these cases. Residential college deans are skilled at handling student issues and at maintaining confidentiality.