<p>My D HS just hooked up with Naviance and they are loading last years information and this years to the database. My D is a junior and it appears that the schools on her list have no history with the HS. She is not applying to the Ivy League or top tier schools but schools on the CTCL range. Does anyone have an opinion on how colleges feel about applicants from a HS that has never had anyone apply to that college before? My D will be in the running at some schools- right in the 25-75 % mix and the GPA in line. These colleges have an acceptance rate of 50% or more.</p>
<p>Would most colleges look to open a new HS to their applicant pool or would it make little difference. We would be full pay as would most applicants from our town.</p>
<p>My son did just fine applying to schools no one at his high school had ever applied to. I worried a lot about it as his high school was very rigourous and only the rare students get 4.0's. But he was accepted everwhere he applied(and those were schools with less than a 50% acceptance rate.) My sense is your D will do fine.</p>
<p>Thanks Oaklandmom- I am more concerned that the HS is not rigourous enough. I was surprised by the limited pool of colleges that the students applied to.</p>
<p>We had almost no Naviance hits either because most of my son's picks are far away and few kids from his HS want to leave the Northeast. So far, he's doing very well with admissions.</p>
<p>I wonder if its more common for kids at a HS to apply to a limited number of schools. My son's HS was that way even though it was very rigorous, very few even applied out side of the state college/universityi system. It would be an interesting piece of data.</p>
<p>My D is waiting on two top tier LACs that, according to our Naviance site, no one has previously applied to. She's been accepted to a lower tier school in that category.</p>
<p>Our site seems not to list schools that one or very few students have applied to in the past; I know of at least two such schools from last year.</p>
<p>I think Naviance will become more useful as they plug more data in. But it has been interesting to see where the holes are. A school of 3000 kids and no one has applied to Caltech? And too few to MIT to put up a scattergram?</p>
<p>I tried to use the Naviance data from my D's cousins HS but those 2 schools are at a different level. I did not feel that I could use the GPA reported from those 2 HS although the SAT would work. My D's GPA is much higher but her cousins attend much tougher HS. My D's SAT while ok takes her out of the running for a top tier although her GPA would be in line. Her cousins SAT's put them in the running for top tiers their GPA, although good, takes them out of the running.</p>
<p>I wouldn't worry too much about your HS not having much/any history of sending students to the schools that your daughter is interested in. I have already been accepted to a school that no one from my HS has applied to recently (very few ever, I would suspect). You said that your daughter was looking at CTCL--type places. It is possible that these are just schools that the kids at your D's HS have not really heard of (not because they're not any good...kids are generally just not that well-versed in colleges outside of their particular "comfort zone", which often does not extend beyond state or athletic conference lines) or would not be particularly interested in. Example: my large, suburban, midwestern public HS has a very different personality than a smallish, east coast, women's LAC (the school that I referenced earlier), and thus I am the only recent applicant to that school. There are also no applicants to Dartmouth at my school this year, because it is small, far away, and rural when compared to my HS. Obviously, Dartmouth is plenty famous, and there are applicants to each of the other Ivies, so it is not a function of selectivity-fear. </p>
<p>I have also realized that kids are not as adventurous/USNWR crazy as we here at CC often tend to believe. Most kids that I know can hardly imagine why anyone would want/need to apply to 9 schools, as I have, or would not apply to our flagship state U, as I have not. They generally apply to a small number and variety of schools. I am most definitely the rare one.</p>
<p>I applied to a school that no one at my high school even know exist. Carthage College, I think they inbrace it because it people from another region they get people from all other states but southern states. I got accepted.</p>
<p>I wouldn't worry about whether students from your h.s. applied to the colleges your daughter is interested in. I worried about the same think for my two kids, and both were accepted to very competitive schools which no one else from our school had ever attended (to my knowledge). (We do not have Naviance at our school.) In reading on this issue, some say that it is an advantage if no one from a h.s. has attended, because colleges are looking to broaden the student body, which includes students from different schools and places.</p>
<p>Our daughter applied to 4 schools not on her Naviance (hers only had 2 years worth of history also). She got in to all 4 with merit money. I think 2 were on the CTCL list.</p>
<p>Our HS doesn't use Naviance. My daughter was very likely the first person to apply to her college from her HS, same might be true for my son and his college. I still haven't met someone from around here that has even known someone else that went to my son's college. Both got merit aid. It's good to break the mold!</p>
<p>It may mean that you have more work to do than you would if your school were known to the colleges to which y0ur child wants to apply. The guidance counselors at some high schools have a very narrow list of schools and do well with those colleges because they have a long track record with the admissions people there. Your family may have to do more in terms of online research, seeking people out, trying to get a feel for what these colleges are like and are seeking, visiting, and "packaging" your child than you might if more students from your child's school had looked at these coleges. That is to the good, however, as your child is probably more likely to end up at a great fit than he or she might otherwise have and you'll really know what you are getting into.</p>
<p>Bravo for looking past other people's lists to find the right school for your child. It's refreshing.</p>