Degree Planning for Advisors
Together, myPurduePlan and SmartPlan work to give you and your students a complete picture — from degree audit to a semester-by-semester path to graduation.
Smart Plan vs. myPurduePlan
Purdue’s two degree planning tools work best together. Smart Plan is a dynamic planning tool to map a semester-by-semester path to graduation and model the impact of a program-level change. The myPurduePlan is the official degree audit platform for use in reviewing worksheets, documenting advising notes and tracking degree requirements.
Getting Started with Smart Plan
Smart Plan helps you guide students toward graduation. Working alongside the myPurduePlan, it shows a student’s courses, transfer credit and expected graduation timeline in one place. Review semester-by-semester plans together and evaluate how changes affect progress. Plans remain tentative until you approve.
Getting Started with myPurduePlan
Powered by DegreeWorks, myPurduePlan combines Purdue degree requirements with a student’s completed coursework to show progress toward degree completion and flag outstanding requirements. Learn how to navigate the tool, read worksheets, document advising notes and use the GPA calculators.
Questions? Email myPurduePlan@purdue.edu.
Actions in myPurduePlan
- Find a student or group of students
- Navigate within myPurduePlan
- Review and interpret student worksheets
- Use the What-If feature when a student is considering changing majors
- Add notes to a student’s worksheet
- Calculate a GPA using the GPA calculator
Student Access to myPurduePlan
This tool is available for all currently enrolled undergraduate and professional students who first attended Purdue in fall 2011 or later. Students with a catalog term of fall 2011 or later can also run a worksheet.
Navigating and Reading Worksheets
Once you’ve located a student, use the tools below to navigate myPurduePlan and review their degree worksheet.
I want to learn about
The Student Context Area appears just below the top navigation and shows key details about the student you’re viewing. It includes:
- Student ID: 9-digit PUID
- Name: A drop-down list will display if you have multiple students selected
- Degree: A drop-down list will display if the student has multiple degrees
- Major: Student’s primary major for the selected degree
- Classification: Student’s current level (first-year, second-year, etc.)
When you select a student in myPurduePlan, their worksheet automatically opens. To generate an updated worksheet, select Process. The worksheet summarizes completed, in-progress and planned coursework, as well as shows which requirements are complete vs. outstanding.
Each section of the worksheet serves a specific purpose:
- Student information: Student details pulled from Banner (any corrections must be made in Banner)
- Legend: Explains the symbols used on the worksheet (located at the bottom)
- Degree progress indicator: Percentage of requirements completed toward the degree
- Degree block: Summary of degree requirements, total credits required, credits applied, overall GPA and catalog year (Note: Credits applied equals completed in addition to work in progress and registered courses)
- Major block: Major requirements, catalog term and major GPA
- Minor block: Minor requirements, catalog term and minor GPA
- Concentration block: Concentration requirements, catalog term and concentration GPA (not all programs include this block)
- Insufficient block: Courses below minimum grade requirements (may include W, I, F and excluded repeats)
- In progress block: Courses the student is currently registered for (‘WIP’ means work in progress)
- Over the limit: Courses that don’t meet degree requirements because they’re too old, not allowed for the program or remedial coursework
On the worksheet, select the more button in the upper right corner to access the GPA calculator, class history by term and notes.
The myPurduePlan includes a What-If feature that shows how a student’s current coursework would apply to a different program — providing a comprehensive look at all degree requirements. For most What-If exploration, however, you should direct students to Smart Plan, which provides a semester-by-semester path and can calculate the actual time-to-degree impact of a program change.
The two tools are complementary: use the myPurduePlan What-If feature for degree audit verification and Smart Plan What-If for planning impact.
Smart Plan is currently available to select majors, with a full undergraduate rollout planned. Advisor-specific Smart Plan resources are forthcoming. For now, student-facing Smart Plan resources are available in the Smart Plan student resources.
To use the What-If feature in myPurduePlan: select the What-If tab on the student’s worksheet. Choose the program requirements to test — required fields are Level, Degree, Catalog Term, Major and College. Process What-If to generate the worksheet. Use only valid combinations as invalid combinations may return incomplete or incorrect results.
Look Ahead worksheets show how planned future courses could apply to degree requirements, which are useful when helping students plan for upcoming terms.
Notes and GPA Calculators
Use the Notes tab to document advising conversations in the student’s record and the GPA Calc tab to help students model their academic progress.
Advising Notes
Use the Notes tab to document advising comments in the student’s myPurduePlan record. Notes can be public (visible to the student) or internal (not visible to the student). Students see public notes immediately after you save them. To delete a note, email myPurduePlan@purdue.edu.
Follow FERPA guidelines when entering notes. Advisors see both public and internal notes — a checkmark indicates an internal note.
To view notes:
- Select View Notes to display notes for the student. Each note shows the date and creator’s name.
To add a note:
- Select Add Note to open the note text box.
- Enter the note text (use a predefined note or type your own).
- Check the box to mark as internal if it shouldn’t be visible to the student and save your note.
To modify a note:
- Select Modify Notes to edit notes you’ve created.
- Update the note text, and select Modify Notes again to save.
GPA Calculators
The GPA Calc tab includes three calculators. Use the table below to identify which one fits your needs, and then follow the steps for that calculator.
| Tool | Calculations |
|---|---|
| Graduation Calculator | The average GPA a student must earn across remaining credits to reach a desired final GPA at graduation (also when a goal GPA is no longer feasible) |
| Term Calculator | Estimates a student’s end-of-term GPA based on expected grades for the current term — prepopulated with current courses and credits |
| Advice Calculator | The number of credits a student must earn at a given GPA to reach a desired GPA target |
How to use the Graduation Calculator:
- Enter the current GPA (auto-populates), credits remaining, credits required and desired final GPA, and calculate
- The result shows the average GPA needed across the remaining credits
How to use the Term Calculator:
- Enter or update expected grades for each course (current courses and credits prepopulate) and calculate
- The result shows the estimated end-of-term GPA
- To revise, select Recalculate and update the fields and calculate again
How to use the Advice Calculator
- Enter current GPA (auto-populates), credits earned (auto-populates) and desired GPA, and calculate
- The result shows the GPA needed to reach the desired target