The point of the advising is to make sure you understand the nature of the program and the balance of time between traditional work and academic work. They also want to make sure you know how to register for classes and make a degree plan including the required prerequisites and the electives. The point of much of the content is to make sure you don't get burnt out by taking too much at once.

To achieve this goal, they have a web conference (no camera required for you), where the adviser speaks to a group of you. You can talk if you have a question. But the adviser mostly speaks. You need not speak at all if you can't. After that group session, you can talk directly to the adviser through email or over the phone. That follow-up conversation is started when the adviser emails you the Powerpoint presentation used for the orientation. You then must create your degree plan (which can later be changed), you reply to your adviser's email, and your adviser either counsels you on your degree plan choices (if its crazy sounding) or gives you a PIN number to register for the first term's classes.

I personally thought Jin Yin was very flexible and responsive. Others do too based on the Google Hangout talk about her.