The Opinion of Students about the Status of EducationalCounseling in the University of Medical Sciences in the FirstSemester of 2012

Background: the counselors are responsible for academic counselingto students and help them to solve their educational problems. theaim of the present study was to determine the viewpoints of studentsabout the status of academic counseling provided by the facultyadvisers in four schools at university of medical sciences.methods: in this cross-sectional study, the opinions of 244 studentsabout the counseling status in four schools of medicine, nursingand midwifery, public health, and paramedical were assessed by aself- designed check list including individual and educationalinformation and 12 items with likert scale to assess the students’viewpoints about the status of counseling in the first semester of2012. data were analyzed by spss (v.16), using mean (sd), onewayanova and pearson correlation test.results: “checking and signing form of credit selection” was theonly item from the 12 items of counseling status to which thestudents in four schools had given a higher score [school ofmedicine (2.47±0.60)], [school of para-medicine (2.45±0.66)],[school of health (2.10±0.90)], [school of nursing and midwifery(2.50±0.86)] and there was no significant difference among theschools (p=0.50).conclusions: from the viewpoints of students, the status ofcounseling was not good. informing the advisors about their dutiesand adequate supervision of university officials on properimplementation of counseling by the faculty members can help toimprove the process of advising.