Breaking the Bad News

Competitive majors offer a lot of upsides. A bit of prestige. Perhaps smaller classes. Students are in with the best of the best.

But there is also a downside. There is always going to be a group of students who just don’t make it into the competitive major. You see it in engineering, you see it in nursing, and you see it in my area, business.

While not as exclusive as some top tier business schools across the country, the business school I advise in definitely has a higher bar set, taking a better than average student to get in. As expected it leads to students, who have their sights set on business, receiving bad news along the way.

It is always a struggle for these students to hear that they didn’t make it in. Hard for those who barely miss getting in. Hard for those who realize that they don’t have a shot at making it in…ever. Hard for those who get tunnel vision and can’t accept not getting in.

I have been dealing with this group of students a lot over the last week. Due to a curriculum change last year we were left with a defunct major status. We had an intermediate level to our majors where students progressed after completing an initial set of classes and maintaining a 2.7 GPA. Unfortunately to eventually fully enter the major the student would need to eventually get that GPA up from anywhere from a 3.1-3.4 to be admitted to the school.

For most students this wasn’t too much of a problem as they were already above the GPA to get into the business school. However there was definitely a set who hit that 2.7 GPA and were never able to improve on it, essentially blocking them from moving up.

When the curriculum changed we did away with this mid-level status, streamlining the path to being a full major. But what we could not do was simply get rid of the intermediate level.  And so it seems there is this purgatory of sorts where students are stuck, unlikely to make it to the business school.

So over the past week I have been reaching out to this population in my advising caseload, taking a look at each student individually and reaching out to them to start a very difficult conversation. Namely, what are your current academic goals and what direction are you going. There was a handful in this purgatory who actually are candidates to enter the school. Those were easy conversations.

But the bulk of those in this population really have no shot at making it into the business school. Low GPAs with a large number of credit hours. And thus come the beginnings of breaking the bad news. But breaking bad news is never easy for advisors or their students. Its stressful and intense. You never know how a student will react. From acceptance to rage, I have seen it all.

So how do you break bad news? What tools and tips does an advisor employ to minimize the negative experience of the news? Well here are some of the things I have done to try and help both myself and my students:

The Decision Comes from the Student

I suppose I am pretty lucky in that we have no limits with regard to how many times a student may repeat a course or how many times they may apply to the business school. So as I always put it, pursuing a business degree is the students own time, money and energy. It is not for me to tell them  they can’t pursue a business degree or they have to change their major. So in the end, it is up to the student to decide if going down a particular road is the best use of their time, money and energy.

Know Your Alternatives

We have always known what majors most of those who don’t get into the business school wind up in, Economics and Communications. It was easy to just spit those out and refer students to their academic advisors. However the university has many more majors where students could achieve the same career goals, just through another major. So we have invited those majors into our staff meetings to better inform us of how business student fit into their major and how our staff can better refer students to their major. We even created a handout that gives some brief overviews of those majors and contact information along with strong minors for the “business experience.”

Value What They Have Completed

Another nice thing that we always have in our pockets is that we have a minor that can absorb the work they have already completed. So even if they cannot quite make it into the business school, perhaps they can find one of those alternative majors and compliment it with a business minor. Hopefully by including the minor with a new major they don’t feel as if all their work was for naught. Instead it validates their work to date, even if they have to change direction.

Be Empathetic

Breaking bad news is never positive. It is almost as if the student needs to go through the seven stages of grief before they can actually accept what is going on. Advisors need to be a positive presence in the room even as bad news is given. This is not saying to provide false hope. But advisors need to have concern for what the student is currently going through. Perhaps advisors can draw on their own past experience to create a bond. I routinely reference my not-so-stellar freshman year in these conversations.

Be Honest

No matter how bad the news or how emotionally charged the conversation is, an advisor must always be honest with the student. At the end of the day, students will respect that even if they don’t agree with what they are told. Sometimes the facts are hard and cold, but they show to students why and why not something is happening. Creating false hopes and offering straw bridges will only make the situation worse later down the line.

Be Firm and Consistent

When delivering bad news you have to just do it. There will always be the stories that tug at your heartstrings or the insistent student who keeps asking the same thing over and over. But you are having a conversation for a reason. So don’t waver. Deliver it and move on to the positive.

Don’t Be an Advising Face

Advisors have large caseloads. Some have much larger loads than others. But breaking bad news is always easier when you have a prior relationship with a student. And as hard and as cliché as it sounds, we have to try and get to know each of our students on a more personal level. While it can’t always be avoided, you don’t want your first, and perhaps only, conversation with a student to be you telling them no.

Like I said, just a couple of the tools and tenants I keep with me.