<p>Are your high school scattergrams a fairly accurate projection at your chances of getting into a particular college, even if they are very different from national scattergrams?</p>
<p>I only find them helpful in the following circumstances:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>When the range of acceptance years is limited. (It used to be that our h.s. graphed for the previous 5 years: sorry, that doesn't cut it anymore.)</p></li>
<li><p>When the graph is comprehensive.<br>
It doesn't help for a school to subscribe to a service, only to have half the class say "Eewwww, I don't want mine up there!" Actually, if there's a full report, it's much more likely that a particular student's stats will get "lost" (less exposed) in the mass of plots on the graph, anyway! Besides which, really most people other than the student, the student's family, and administration have no clue what the GPA & score is of any particular student. Even when you tell your best friend, the vast majority of the time, the friend really does forget. Hard enough to keep track of your own scores, etc.! They may share <em>some</em> college acceptance info, but most students at our school do not divulge details to others about GPA's, etc. "Your" plot on a scattergram could belong to 10 or 15 people; it would be hard to identify it as "you." (Because not everybody remembers where you've said you've applied to college; they'll forget, generally, for the same reason they forget other people's grades!)</p></li>
</ul>
<p>When the above 2 things happen, then yes, it's been helpful to our students.</p>
<p>No not at all. If it did I should have been rejected at all my reaches. Fact of the matter is that once your GPA and SATs are above a certain range it comes down to your ECs, essays and other aspects of your application. A simple SAT vs. GPA scattergram doesn't reflect this.</p>
<p>epiphany - Thank you for your feedback. I believe that our scattergrams currently graph 5 years, however, it also has a breakdown of how many students were accepted out of how many students applied each year. Additionally, we do not have a choice in whether our data is included in the scattergram. Our school automatically plots your data. I'm just hesitant to trust a scattergram, especially with the insanely low acceptance rates many top colleges have.</p>
<p>mahras2 - If you're in a cluster of green dots though, is it reasonable to assume you have a good chance of getting in, providing you have good essays and recommendations? Can I go off of the scattergrams when choosing safeties, matches, and reaches?</p>
<p>Whimsical, I agree with this last post of yours. It's really about ranges. </p>
<p>Also I agree with you about the other features of naviance, which people forget about: the numbers of applications vs. acceptances, also yr. by yr. the range of scores & GPA's accepted. The comparative strength of the national pool is evident for some of these colleges, as the <em>rate</em> of acceptance from our school has declined in some cases -- steadily over the last 6 yrs., even.</p>
<p>I also think the way your school does it is the only fair way: everybody's stats get graphed. Otherwise, there is not equity. You sign a contract with the school, you sign for Naviance, because otherwise the data is not helpful for the whole school, & compromises the subscription. I use the data <em>conservatively</em> (you say you "don't trust it"), "believing" only the highest ranges, using those as a bellweather, and only as a guide, not a promise.</p>
<p>Our school actually seems to go back and forth regarding rates of acceptance depending on the year. For example, in 2005, 7 out of 21 people were accepted to Princeton. In 2006, 0 out of 20 people were accepted. As of right now, the 2007 results have still not been updated save for early decisions, where it appears 1 person got in. It's hard to judge when acceptance rates bounce up and down.</p>
<p>It's not that I don't trust Naviance per say, I just don't want to rely too heavily on a scattergram. But you think it's safe to believe the highest ranges?</p>
<p>No, my naviance sucked. Granted, our school is fairly small and only around 10 years old, and over time, it will probably have a more consistant graph. Since no one ever got into tufts, i couldnt tell. Since only one person ever got into Columbia with fairly average stats and a lot denied with super low stats, my dot was much higher but of course i got rejected. And NYU looked like a safety, it looks like almost everyone who ever applied got in be it 3.2 gpa or 4.0! i was going to be the highest and furthest dot, oh wait i got waitlisted when everything below me is green.</p>
<p>I would perhaps "trust" the scattergrams less in a heavily competitive & dense region, such as the Northeast, since this is also the region with the highest number of applications to colleges in general, resulting in a great deal of waitlisting as well as rejections due to saturation of the college market.</p>
<p>The trends have been a little calmer & more predictable from our end. Mostly, we do not use them in the affirmative but in the negative: It tends to be that we exclude a college from the list based on Naviance scattergram (or exclude an expectation), rather than include one based on history.</p>