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Summary
This article will help you submit an education plan you have created in Degree Planner for approval by your assigned advisor, if applicable depending on your status as a student. It will detail the steps involved and the information you should provide to ensure your plan meets the standards needed for approval.
Before you begin reading
This article assumes you have already successfully logged into Starfish and have found and opened the Degree Planner link from the hamburger menu in the My Success Network page in Starfish. If you have yet to find Degree Planner, use the link below for the steps to do so:
Where to find Degree Planner?
This article also assumes you have successfully found and built a degree plan in Degree Planner. If you have yet to build a plan, use the link below to do so:
Exploring & Building plans in Degree Planner
This article further assumes you have experienced finding and placing courses to take inside your plan in the Courses tab of Degree Planner. If you have yet to explore your plan timeline in the Courses tab, use the link below to do so:
Inside Your Degree Planner Plan: Courses
Who Needs an Approved Plan?
An approved plan is required for any student looking to graduate from Shoreline College with a credential. Typically, you are expected to have an approved plan in place before you have registered for your 3rd quarter of classes, or by the end of your 2nd quarter. If you are non-degree seeking, a post-baccalaureate or undecided student, an approved plan is not needed.
Getting a Plan Ready for Approval
While you can submit a plan for approval at any time, it is a good idea to make sure you have eliminated any outstanding errors, warnings or conflicts from your plan, if able. Use the article: Common Errors in Degree Planner and How to Fix them for details on how to resolve errors.
The most successful education plans are usually made after you have gotten placement into courses and after any incoming transcripts for other institutions have been evaluated. While you can make a plan anytime, the most complete plans usually rely on either or both pieces being complete and accounted for inside Degree Planner. Attempting to build out a plan with incomplete information will often result in errors. Talk with your advisor about making a plan if you have not gotten placement or have had your transcripts evaluated.
Once you have crafted a plan in Degree Planner that seems reasonable to you and your circumstances, you can submit your plan. You do not need to have chosen all your electives and plan does not need to be perfect - your advisor will review it and help by making changes, providing notes and giving you suggestions on how you can improve it. Once you are comfortable with a plan, you are ready to submit it.
Submitting a Plan for Approval
You should only submit one plan for your advisor to review.
Submitting a plan is easy. Simply click the Request Approval link in the navigation bar:
This will open the Request Approval page:
There is no word limit when you submit your plan, so use this text box to provide important information to your advisor, including:
- Any questions you have about your plan.
- Any comments you believe will be useful in evaluating your plan.
- Whether you are looking to build a full-time, part-time or custom plan.
- Whether you want to take courses over the Summer.
- If transferring, what institutions are you considering applying to come graduation? What programs?
- If going into the job market, what types of jobs will you be looking for? What kind of employer?
- Any personal or professional circumstances you think are relevant to your success completing your plan.
When you are ready, click the Send button to submit your plan to your advisor. If you have multiple advisors assigned to you, you can select which advisor is sent your plan.
Once you have requested approval, you will see this notice on the top of your plan:
Your plan will also be updated in two ways.
First, you will have created a new entry in your plan history, including a PDF-version snapshot of your plan at the time you have requested approval.
Second, your plan will be updated from the plans screen and will have a new status:
Next Steps
After requesting approval, please allow 2-3 business days for your advisor to review, modify and create notes about your plan.
Generally, there are two results for plans you have requested approval on.
Returned Plan
If after reviewing your plan, your advisor has questions or believes the current plan is insufficient to meet your goals, they may return your plan back to you without approving it. This will change the status for your plan to Returned.
A Returned plan is not an approved plan - additional actions will be required before it can be approved. Sometimes your advisor may have questions, or may make suggestions on how to improve your plan. Sometimes they may request that you set up a meeting with them before they approve a plan.
You will see this warning banner when you open a returned plan:
Clicking the link to view comments will take you to the plan history page, where you can read any comments made about this plan and the action steps needed for approval.
If there are open questions or changes that they have requested from you, you can resubmit your plan for approval and provide answers or comments or make the requested changes.
Approved Plan
If your advisor agrees with the plan you have built or has made changes to improve your plan, they can approve your plan. That will change the status of your plan and will automatically make this plan your active plan, populating at the top of your plan list.
You will see this congratulation banner at the top of your plan when you open an approved plan:
Clicking the link to view comments will take you to the plan history page, where you can read any comments made about this plan.
Once you have an Approved Plan
Congratulations! Your plan has been approved!
You can now use this plan to help guide your decisions when it comes time to register for courses.
If your plan has placeholders in it, you can choose any course from the list within the placeholder or register for any course that counts towards that placeholder without needing approval.
However, if you choose to substantively change your approved plan by attempting to move courses around, remove courses or add new courses, that will automatically change your plan's status from Approved to In Progress, meaning you will need to submit your plan for approval again once the changes have been made. If you and your advisor together agree to change things on your approved plan, the plan will remain approved as long as your advisor is the one who has made the changes.
You will get a warning pop-up in Degree Planner if an action in an Approved plan will change the plan's status away from approval.
