"It would be a good idea if all the concentrations got together and made students an accessible resource," Selsby says. "If a prefect said, 'Don't do Gov., that's a stupid concentration,' a proctor would likely step in, because that type of advice is far too unspecific."
White notes how influential academic advice can be to wondering first-years, regardless of where the advice comes from.
"First years are vulnerable to what people say," he says.
And though some may be in favor of giving prefects a more official advising role, Nathans is firm in her opinion that upperclass students are not prepared to formally advise first-years on academic issues.
Nathans will continue to explore options for improving first year advising, options that will likely not include a formal peer-advising program.
"The prefects specifically do not do formal academic advising," she notes. "The most involved and most successful of the prefects indeed are critically-important advisers as well as role models and friends to students in the entries to which they're assigned."