The First-Year Tutorial, a seminar program, gives each first-year student the opportunity to work in a small group with the tutorial professor on a topic of mutual interest.

The tutorial establishes the first ongoing relationship between student and professor, so that from the beginning each student knows at least one professor well. The tutorial professor serves as the student's academic adviser until a major is declared. Because the tutorial is limited to 12-13 students, the tutorial professor can discover what each student wants and needs in an academic course of study. This close student-adviser relationship has been the basis of Grinnell's academic advising system for more than 30 years.

All first-year students and many transfer students enroll in a Tutorial: a one-semester, four-credit course. This is one of three or four courses taken during the fall semester. Although not all Tutorial sections progress in exactly the same way, most include an introduction to college-level writing, oral presentation and discussion, critical analysis, and information literacy. Students then undertake independent study of the tutorial topic, working individually or in small groups and meeting regularly with the professor in and out of class.

Each year, faculty members from all departments offer more than 30 tutorials on different topics, allowing students to choose a subject that interests them.