Before DAP, BMCC’s advising team relied on paper records and manual transcript reviews to determine where students stood in their programs. Every audit required advisors to carefully confirm course substitutions, calculate remaining credits, and verify graduation requirements. The work was important, but it demanded significant time and attention that could otherwise be spent working directly with students.
BMCC became Kuali’s first customer for DAP and worked closely with the Kuali team to help shape a system around the needs of advisors and students. Today, DAP automatically evaluates student records against program requirements and shows what is complete, in progress, or still needed. Instead of spending their time manually calculating requirements, advisors can quickly understand where a student stands and focus the conversation on what comes next.
For BMCC’s advisors, completing a degree audit could feel like starting over each time. The team reviewed transcripts by hand, checked degree requirements, accounted for substitutions, and calculated remaining credits manually. Maintaining accuracy required significant time and attention.
As enrollment grew and BMCC served more online students, the college needed a way to make those detailed reviews faster and easier without losing the confidence advisors needed in the information they were using. The goal wasn’t to remove advisors from the process. It was the opposite: reduce the routine work surrounding degree audits so advisors could spend more time actually advising students.
Students also needed greater visibility into their own progress. Rather than relying on an advisor to manually determine where they stood, BMCC wanted students to have clearer access to their academic path—including what they had completed, what remained, and how different choices could affect their progress toward graduation.
BMCC partnered with Kuali to rethink the degree audit experience, becoming the first institution to adopt and help shape DAP. The solution automatically evaluates student records against program requirements, giving advisors an immediate view of what a student has completed, what is in progress, and what is still needed.
That visibility changes the advising conversation. Advisors can spend less time manually verifying requirements and more time helping students understand their options and plan their next steps. Students gain that visibility, too. From their own devices, they can view progress, plan upcoming terms, and explore “what-if” scenarios to understand how changing majors or adding a certificate could affect their path to graduation.
DAP can also identify certificates or credentials students are close to completing. At BMCC, that has helped surface achievements students may not have realized were within reach and created opportunities to leave the institution with additional credentials. For online students, having up-to-date academic information available remotely provides access to the same clarity around their progress without requiring an in-person advising conversation.
"Kuali Degree Audit & Degree Planning gives us confidence. When we meet with a student, we know exactly where they stand and what they need to finish. There is no waiting and no second-guessing. It's right there, instantly."
– Theresa Bosworth, Vice President of Student Services, Blue Mountain Community College
Since implementing DAP, BMCC has seen improvements in both advising efficiency and student outcomes.
The college has:
The impact goes beyond making degree audits faster. DAP gives both sides of the advising relationship access to clearer information. Advisors can enter conversations knowing where students stand. Students can explore their own progress, consider different academic paths, and arrive better prepared to make decisions about what comes next.
And for BMCC, the partnership has extended beyond the software itself. As Kuali’s first customer for DAP, the college worked directly with the Kuali team to help shape a system designed around the realities of advising.
Degree audits are essential, but manually calculating requirements doesn’t have to consume an advisor’s time.
BMCC’s experience shows what becomes possible when advisors and students have immediate access to clearer information about academic progress. Routine degree audit work becomes faster, students gain greater visibility into their paths, and advisors have more time for the conversations where their expertise matters most.
With Kuali Degree Audit and Degree Planning, BMCC has moved from paper-based degree audits to a real-time approach that supports advisors, empowers students, and provides greater clarity on the path to completion.
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