How to use this scorecard
Work through each of the five dimensions before your April planning meetings begin. Score every indicator honestly, dimension by dimension. The total points to where your summer orientation program is strong and where it needs work, while you still have time to act on what you find.
The scoring system
1. Not in place. We don't do this, or we do it inconsistently enough that we can't rely on it.
2. Exists but inconsistently. It happens, but it's ad hoc or owned by one person who improvises it.
3. Designed, documented, and delivered. There's a clear process, it's written down, and it runs reliably each year.
Who completes it, and when
This scorecard is designed for the orientation director, ideally with input from one staff member who ran sessions last summer. Budget 30 to 40 minutes. The best time to run it is six to eight weeks before April planning meetings, while you still have room to redesign sessions, build new communications, or make the case for additional resources.
Dimension 1: Operational design and session flow
Whether your sessions are actually built, not just scheduled. The session calendar on the wall is not the same as a session that is ready to run.
- Every session has a written run-of-show document with timing, room assignments, and named staff for each block.
- The physical route a student takes from check-in to first session has been walked by a staff member in the last 12 months.
- Back-to-back sessions have a documented changeover plan, including which staff are responsible for resetting rooms.
- Every session has a named owner who has final authority when something goes off-plan.
- The technology you depend on (registration, check-in, communication) has been tested end-to-end on the actual hardware you will use in June.
Dimension 2: Communication infrastructure and ownership
Whether the messages between deposit and arrival are designed, owned, and accountable. Most melt happens in silence.
- You have a documented summer communication calendar with send dates, owners, and approved content for every touchpoint between deposit and orientation.
- There is a named owner for the orientation inbox who responds within 24 hours, with a documented escalation path for parent or urgent inquiries.
- Students who have not completed required pre-orientation tasks receive targeted follow-up, not the same general email the whole cohort receives.
- Every communication includes a single point of contact and a way to find your orientation hub (web page, app, or portal).
- The communication plan does not depend on one person being in the office. If that person took two weeks off in July, the messages would still go out.
Dimension 3: Staffing model and team readiness
Whether your orientation leaders, peer mentors, and student staff are recruited, trained, and clear on their role before May. The OL who quits in June is a known unknown. Plan for it.
- Orientation leader roles, hours, and pay are documented and accepted in writing by every OL before May 1.
- You have a contingency staffing plan with named backup people for every critical role.
- OL training covers crisis response (mental health, accessibility, conduct), not only hospitality and ice-breakers.
- Professional staff and student staff have a shared understanding of who handles what, written down somewhere everyone can find.
- OLs have a clear, named person they go to when something they encounter is above their pay grade, on every day of every session.
Dimension 4: Student data, access, and pre-arrival tasks
Whether students can find what they need before they arrive, and whether you know who has and hasn't done what they need to do.
- You can pull, today, a list of deposited students who have not completed each required pre-orientation task.
- Students have one place to go for every pre-arrival task (account setup, ID upload, advising, placement, housing).
- The pre-arrival experience has been tested by someone who is not an orientation staff member in the last 12 months.
- FERPA-protected information is handled with documented procedures that every staff member has read and acknowledged.
- You can answer, in March, the question: how many students typically complete each task by each date in the cycle? You have last year's numbers to compare against.
Dimension 5: Measurement and post-session review
Whether you have decided, in advance, what success looks like and how you will measure it. The hardest dimension to score honestly, because most programs do not actually do this.
- You have written down, before June, the three to five outcomes you are trying to drive this summer (e.g. pre-arrival task completion rate, session attendance, OL retention).
- You have a feedback collection plan for students, parents, and staff that you have actually used in a prior year and will use again.
- Last summer's lessons are written down somewhere your team will see them this summer, not buried in an email thread.
- You debrief after each session, not only at the end of the summer, and the debrief notes go somewhere persistent.
- You can name one specific change you made this year as a result of last year's feedback, and you can name where that change is documented.
Read your results
Add your five dimension scores together for your total out of 15. Use the bands below to identify where to focus this spring.
13 to 15: Operationally ready. Your summer program is well-designed across most dimensions. Use April and May to refine the lowest-scoring dimension, not rebuild.
9 to 12: Solid in places, gaps worth closing. You have real strengths. Identify the two lowest-scoring dimensions and prioritise those in your spring planning. At least one of them likely has a direct line to your retention data.
5 to 8: Significant build still to do. Several dimensions need attention before June. Decide which gaps you can address this cycle and which require longer-term investment.
Below 5: Structural redesign needed. Your program has foundational gaps. Prioritise Dimensions 1 and 2 first. Operational design and communication are the fastest levers in the short term.
One change per dimension
For each dimension where you scored below 10, write down one specific thing you will change before this year's sessions begin. Not a goal. A change. A session redesigned. A protocol written. A communication calendar built.
Bring this scorecard into your spring planning meeting. Walk your team through the scores dimension by dimension. The conversation it starts is at least as valuable as the document itself.
Run It All From One Place
If your scorecard surfaced gaps in session flow, communication consistency, or pre-arrival task completion, those are exactly the problems an orientation app solves. Guidebook gives orientation teams a mobile-native platform with schedules, push notifications, check-in, and engagement tracking in one place. No IT tickets, no developer waiting list.
See how Guidebook works →
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