An AI academic advisor that answers from the student's own catalog year and degree audit, cites every sentence, and never promises an exception
Answers at any hour, cited to the student's own catalog year, and never a promise.
See one case, screen by screen ↓Academic Advising Assistant is an AI academic advisor for colleges and universities. It answers students' and advisors' degree requirement questions from the catalog of record for the student's own catalog year, the live degree audit and published policy, and cites every sentence to page and section. Anything that needs a decision becomes an advising case that the advisor and the college dean decide.
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An AI academic advisor is only as good as the catalog year it answers from. Every registration season the same questions arrive by the thousand: does this course count, which catalog am I on, can one course count twice, what happens if I change majors. Most have a written answer somewhere in the catalog, the degree audit and the policy manual, so advisors spend booked-solid appointments reading degree requirements aloud while students at risk wait. A generic academic advising chatbot is faster, but it answers from the current catalog. With five catalog years live at once, the same course can meet a requirement for one student and not for the student next to them, and a wrong-year answer surfaces at the graduation check, a term too late.
The other failure is a promise. "That should count" in a chat or an email reads as approval, but substitutions, waivers and petitions belong to the advisor and the college dean, and the degree audit changes only when the dean signs. Academic Advising Assistant puts academic advising AI in front of the routine questions, answers each from the student's own catalog year with every sentence cited, and turns anything that needs a decision into a case with the evidence attached. Each week it also tells the catalog editor which rules confuse students.
Estimated split of a typical course substitution request, by hand and with the agents, in business days. The 'after' column is our modest estimate inside the three-business-day service level the solution sets for substitutions.
Seven agents answer from the student's own catalog year, check every other year and turn decisions into cases; the advisor recommends, the dean co-signs.
Jordan Ellis is a junior in the Psychology BA on the 2023-24 catalog, registering for spring 2027 on November 2. On Tuesday, October 20, he asks two questions from the learning management system. Here is what happens, screen by screen, in the working solution.
Jordan asks whether PSY 2210 can count for his Quantitative Reasoning requirement. The Question Router reads his catalog year and program, the Audit Reader runs his degree audit, the Answerer drafts from the 2023-24 catalog of record, and the Citation Checker passes all three sentences at confidence 0.96 and a grade-8 reading level. His General Education block, 30 of 36 credits, sits open under the answer with the deciding rule, QR-3, highlighted.
Yes. Under your 2023-24 catalog, PSY 2210 … meets Quantitative Reasoning.
He clicks p. 214 · QR-3. The passage from the 2023-24 Undergraduate Catalog opens with the approved course list and PSY 2210 highlighted. The read-only view is logged.
The Year Checker re-asks the question in 2022-23, 2024-25, 2025-26 and 2026-27. Two years give the same answer; 2025-26 and 2026-27 are marked "Would not count", because PSY 2210, SOC 2210 and ECON 2400 left the Quantitative Reasoning list in 2025-26 (p. 198 · QR-2.4). Jordan can show each cited rule word for word.
You stay on 2023-24 unless your catalog year changes.
Jordan asks whether STAT 1050 from Brandvale, taken through dual enrollment, can count instead of the major's introductory statistics course. The Question Router recognizes a course substitution for PSY-MR2, and the Case Builder opens case AC-26-04417 for his advisor with a filled course substitution petition. He attaches the syllabus at 3:19 p.m.
I can't approve a substitution, and I won't guess. Your advisor and the dean of your college decide these.
Priya has 312 advisees, and spring registration opens Monday, November 2. Her home screen shows four numbers, two cases due today, and what the agents did since last night: the Case Builder's new case for Jordan, the Year Checker's note on Kevin Tran's answer, and a sensitive topic the Question Router sent to a person.
The Case Builder checked the STAT 1050 syllabus against the STAT 1100 learning outcomes: 5 of 6 matched, and the statistical software outcome only partly. Precedent shows 13 earlier requests approved and 1 denied. Priya approves with the reason "Equivalent content, syllabus reviewed" and sends it to the dean.
The evidence supports approval … You decide; the college dean co-signs.
The exception waits in the dean's queue with Priya's recommendation, the rule AP-12, outcomes matched 5 of 6 and precedent 13 of 14. Routine items can be co-signed in bulk; this one he co-signs on its own.
Priya Raman recommended this, so she cannot co-sign it.
Exception EX-26-1184 posts to the live degree audit: PSY-MR2 Introductory Statistics is met by STAT 1050. The notice the Case Builder drafted and Priya approved goes to Jordan. The record lists who viewed it, including an advisor in another college who was denied because Jordan is not his advisee.
The Rule Clarity agent groups the week's 9,214 questions by rule. GE-7, double counting, drew 611 questions, 189 of them some form of "Does it count for my minor too?". Nadia edits the agent's suggested wording and sends it to Marguerite Shaw, the University Registrar, who approves clarification A-2026-07.
The agent replays the 214 answers that cited GE-7: 205 are unchanged and 9 now read differently. It drafts a note for each of those 9 students, and no note goes out until the student's own advisor approves it.
The same questions, seen by the five people they reach: what their day looked like, and what it looks like now.
Seven agents answer from the student's own catalog year, check every other year and turn decisions into cases; the advisor recommends, the dean co-signs.
Identifies the student through single sign-on, reads catalog year and program from the student information system, and classifies the question: a requirement question, a decision request, or a personal or sensitive topic.
Runs the live degree audit, or a what-if with planned courses, and finds the block and the rule the question depends on.
Drafts one short plain-language paragraph from the catalog of record for the student's own catalog year and from published academic policy.
Holds each sentence to the passage it cites, checks the reading level and sets the confidence.
Re-asks the same question in every other live catalog year and marks the years where the answer differs, with citations.
Opens an advising case for decisions and low-confidence answers, with the conversation, citations, an equivalence check, precedent, a filled petition form and a draft notice.
Every week, groups the questions by catalog rule and drafts clearer wording; after a clarification, replays every answer that cited the rule and drafts a note for each answer that changed.
Recommend, co-sign and own the catalog. The agents propose; a named person decides.
Ask about a student, a rule such as QR-3 or GE-7, or the cases due today, or tell it what to prepare. Every answer cites the catalog and opens the right screen.
Why did 2025-26 come up different for Jordan?
Because the 2025-26 catalog changed Quantitative Reasoning: only a MATH or STAT course counts, and PSY 2210 left the list (p. 198 · QR-2.4). Jordan is on 2023-24, where PSY 2210 counts (p. 214 · QR-3). It matters only if his catalog year changes.
Which of my advisees asked about QR this week?
19 of your 312 advisees asked about Quantitative Reasoning in the last 7 days. 15 are on 2022-23 to 2024-25 and heard that PSY 2210 counts; 4 are on 2025-26 and heard that it no longer does. Kevin Tran wants to move to 2025-26, which would change his answer; it is in his case.
Draft notes to my advisees about the GE-7 clarification
Drafted for your 3 advisees whose answers read differently: Kevin Tran, Olivia Grant and Ian Park. Each note quotes what they were told and the clarified wording. Nothing goes out until you approve it, and only after the registrar approves A-2026-07.
Show cases past their service level
1 of yours: Lucas Brandt's waiver, due Monday, escalated to Elena Marsh at 9:00 a.m. Center-wide, 12 of 486 open cases are past due; Arts & Sciences has 5.
13 screens from the working solution, on its sample data. Pick one to see it large.
Thresholds, approvers, service levels and privacy are settings. A change is proposed by one person and approved by another, and every version is kept.
| Setting | Default | Choose from |
|---|---|---|
| Release an answer without a person at | Confidence 0.85 | Below it, the question becomes a case for the advisor |
| Year Checker on every answer | Always on | All five live catalog years; cannot be turned off |
| Topics that always go to a person | Six topics | Medical or hardship withdrawal · Title IX · disability accommodations · financial aid academic progress appeals · academic integrity · crisis, with the counseling line shown at once |
| Course substitution reply within | 3 business days | Talk to my advisor 1 · transfer credit 3 · waiver, petition and catalog-year change 5 · escalates to the director 1 day past due |
| Peak mode during registration | On, October 19 to November 13 | Daily summary to the director · shared college queues open |
| Who co-signs an exception | College associate dean | Never the advisor who recommended it |
| Retention and redaction | 5 years after last enrollment | Social Security numbers, dates of birth and health details redacted from logs · student IDs masked in exports by default |
| Prompts and models | Answerer prompt v3.2 | Each agent versioned; the administrator proposes a change and the director approves it |
Every figure is labelled: a target the solution is built to, an estimate, a typical published result, or a proven one.
Sources: NACADA Clearinghouse, Advisor Load, from the NACADA National Survey of Academic Advising (median 296 advisees per professional advisor; 441 at two-year colleges; 600 at large institutions) · FERPA, 20 U.S.C. 1232g and 34 CFR 99.31(a)(1) · "demo" = seen in the working solution, on its sample data · "typical" = published figures · "estimated" = our estimate · "target" = design goal, measured in the live solution. Halden State University, Brandvale and the people named on this page are fictional: characters and sample data in the working solution.
Academic Advising Assistant is an AI academic advisor for colleges and universities. It answers students' and advisors' degree requirement questions from the catalog of record for the student's own catalog year, the live degree audit and published policy, and cites every sentence to page and section. Anything that needs a decision becomes an advising case that the advisor and the college dean decide.
A student's catalog year sets which edition of the catalog's degree requirements they follow. When several catalog years are live at once, the same course can count for one student and not another. The Year Checker re-asks every question in every other live catalog year and marks the years where the answer differs, with citations, so a change of major or catalog year is never a surprise.
Not this one. The assistant never grants, promises or predicts an exception. A course substitution, waiver, petition or catalog-year change opens a case with the conversation, the rule, an equivalence check, precedent and a filled petition form; the advisor recommends, the college dean co-signs, and only then does the degree audit change.
A chatbot trained on web pages mixes catalog years and cannot show the rule. Here every sentence cites the catalog page and section, the matching block of the student's degree audit is open under the answer, and an answer under the confidence threshold goes to a person instead of the student.
Yes. The agents answer questions of fact, draft cases and draft notices; people decide. The advisor approves or denies with a reason code, the college dean co-signs, the registrar approves catalog wording, and the director approves settings changes. An advisor can correct any answer with a reason code, and the student is told.
It reads the catalog management system, the degree audit system, the student information system, the advising CRM, the learning management system students sign in through, and document management for petition forms and syllabi. When the degree audit is slow, the answer says it is a snapshot and offers a retry.
When the registrar approves a clarification, the Rule Clarity agent replays every answer that cited the old wording and drafts a note for each student whose answer now reads differently. In the working solution, 214 answers were replayed and 9 read differently; each note waits for the student's own advisor to approve it.
The Agentic Solution Engine builds and deploys it from your requirements and documents, such as your catalog years, advising policy and petition forms, and it goes live once every quality gate has passed. We will walk you through it on your own catalog first.
Every student at risk reached within two days, each warning sign cited to its record.
1-min demoAcademic Recovery PlansEvery probation student signs a plan with checked math before registration closes.
1-min demoClinical Placement Compliance TrackingStudents cleared before day one, every document tested against the site's own clause.
1-min demoWe'll run Academic Advising Assistant on your own catalog years and a sample of your students' questions.