College Advisor Baffled By 'Clueless & Entitled' Incoming Freshman Who Don’t Know How Basically Anything Works
Gorodenkoff | ShutterstockStarting college is always a wake-up call for young adults. Every new freshman arrives on campus full of excitement and nerves while also trying to figure out this new chapter in their lives. Usually, they have the basics of independence down, though.
But according to one college advisor, incoming students seem more confused than ever. In a post online, she questioned if high school students are learning at all because she's noticing just how unprepared college freshmen are when they get to school.
College advisor baffled by 'clueless & entitled' freshmen who don't know how anything works.
"So I am an academic advisor for a pretty big state university in the U.S. and we are currently having orientations. Lately, I have noticed how clueless and entitled freshmen have become," she began in her post.
Gorodenkoff | Shutterstock
She explained that during orientation, many of the students argued with her that they didn't have to take certain required classes because they'd already taken them in high school. For example, she had a student who was adamant that they didn't have to enroll in a specific core curriculum class because they had been in their band in high school and therefore didn't need it.
Then there were other students who've claimed that they shouldn't have to take a math class just because they took high school math. "I get students complaining to me that their AP Credits or dual credits have not been posted to their accounts and when I ask them when they submitted, they do not know and that someone submitted it for them?"
She pointed out that previous high school students had to submit everything to colleges themselves.
"I was in high school in 2018 and we had to submit our own stuff. There was someone helping us, but we would be the ones submitting our AP scores, applications, etc. Talking to them has become like talking to a wall," she admitted.
Then of course, there are the college freshmen who are using AI and ChatGPT to search anything and everything. In fact, AI is something rather routine for college students in general.
According to research from the Lumina Foundation-Gallup 2026 State of Higher Education study, more than half (57%) of U.S. college students use AI in their coursework at least weekly, with about one in five using it daily. But more than half of currently enrolled students say their school discourages the use of AI (42%) or prohibits it altogether (11%), while about four in 10 say students are encouraged to use AI, either freely (7%) or with limits (35%).
The college advisor questioned how teachers could handle students nowadays, given that there is so much more they have to be on the lookout for compared to five or six years ago. And that's definitely true. Both high school and college students are getting used to having things done for them without any effort.
Whether it's completing their assignments or even just applying to college, they're quickly learning that it's much easier to depend on technology than it is to just do it on their own.
Nia Tipton is a staff writer with a bachelor's degree in creative writing and journalism who covers news and lifestyle topics that focus on psychology, relationships, and the human experience.
