The midway mark of the fall semester has come and gone, bringing thousands of students across the state into the thick of their senior year of high school. Senior year brings with it a multitude of additional responsibilities and challenges as students and their families navigate the transition to life after high school. Advise NC at Appalachian State University is committed to supporting high school students throughout western North Carolina as they plan for their postsecondary pathways, including college enrollment, workforce employment, and military enlistment. By providing high-quality advising, the program works to ensure that all students are equipped to pursue the postsecondary pathway of their choosing and reach their highest potential.
Program Overview
Advise NC launched in 2019 as a College Advising Corps affiliate with six advisers. Beginning in the 2025-2026 school year, the program relaunched as Advise NC at App State in collaboration with the other Advise NC programs across North Carolina and now includes school partners located in 23 counties throughout western North Carolina.
Advise NC advisers, called Next Step Advisers, work closely with seniors in their schools and meet with all seniors one-on-one at least once during the fall semester and once during the spring semester. They also assist seniors in creating a “Next Step Plan” which serves as an outline for their goals after high school. Students can choose a pathway following one of the three Es – Enrollment, Employment, or Enlistment. Throughout the school year, advisers help students progress through their plan helping with college applications; FAFSA, financial aid, and scholarship applications; military enlistment; workforce entry requirements; and more. Advisers also provide support to families throughout the senior year, helping them to understand forms, timelines, and terminology that may be unfamiliar.
The new Advise NC program model is built upon a six-year-long legacy of supporting Western NC high school students with their next steps planning. During the 2024-25 school year, advisers met one-on-one with more than 3,500 high school seniors, which was 85% of the seniors in the program’s service area, to provide individualized next steps planning support.
The 2025-26 team is made up of seven returning advisers and 14 new Next Step Advisers. These individuals work alongside school personnel in their assigned district and serve as a mentor for high school students. Advisers are recent college graduates and are often closer in age, or "near-peer," to the students they serve. Many Next Step Advisers return to their home communities to serve, often within the high schools or districts they attended as students. Because they recently embarked on their own post-high school journeys, they can serve as trusted mentors and provide first-hand knowledge of the postsecondary planning process to their students.
Listening Tour
On October 28, Advise NC at Appalachian State University hosted the first of three statewide listening tour sessions to gather feedback from educators, community members, and partner organizations about the program’s new model.
Present at the event were several prominent figures in education from across the state, including MC Belk Pilon from the John M. Belk Endowment, as well as former North Carolina State Senator, Deanna Ballard.
Appalachian State University’s Associate Vice Chancellor Dr. Christine Hendren provided opening remarks and introduced Advise NC as “A new framework that will offer the support of our entire research and innovation enterprise here at App State to help build on an incredible existing legacy of improving futures and outcomes for our high school students.”
These individuals, alongside local educators, Office of Rural Promise staff, and the Advise NC Next Step Advisers themselves, discussed the future of Advise NC and the best ways to implement the new state-based model.
At the center of these discussions were the Advise NC Next Step advisers. Ashe County’s Next Step Adviser, Ms. Lorena Calvillo, gave a presentation detailing her daily responsibilities and duties. There were also Next Step Advisers present at every table throughout the event, allowing them to join in on and guide the conversation.
Following the upcoming listening tour sessions in the piedmont region (November 19, NC Botanical Gardens) and coastal region (December 3, UNC-Wilmington), Advise NC representatives will compile stakeholder feedback, share the results, and use the findings to enhance the new program model.
“This school year marks a pivotal time in our program’s history and an opportunity for a new, state-based approach,” said Gloria Medina, program director for Advise NC at Appalachian State University. “The other Advise NC program directors and I are excited to learn from stakeholders and tailor this new model to best meet the unique needs of NC students and communities.
Advise NC at App State and Office of Rural Promise Staff Present the Listening Tour
Advise NC at App State and Office of Rural Promise Staff Present the Listening Tour