Hello All, I hope you guys are staying safe under the circumstances. I am addicted to CC. The insight and perspectives are helpful and entertaining. However, when I look at the targets, reaches and safeties for my S2021 on raiseme, it doesn’t square with what I read on this forum. So, how accurate is raiseme and Naviance for that matter?
Thanks in advance
I’m not familiar with raiseme, and maybe other schools use Naviance differently. Our school maps previous students that have applied to schools, their SAT/ACT scores, GPA, and whether they were accepted, waitlisted, or declined.
As all of that data is collected by the school, I have no reason to believe it’s not accurate. I know my older D’s data shows correctly.
The advice from D20’s school regarding Naviance is take what you see with a grain of salt because they had students enter and track where they applied and their acceptance status so they knew there were potential holes where kids just didn’t follow through or answer honestly. The one thing I noticed after reviewing the updates from this past year was this: D20 applied ED at one school and had her other applications submitted before hearing back but for all of the applications she had withdrawn, she was still accounted for as an applicant with an unknown result even though that wasn’t the case. It’s not a big deal but it skews the overall acceptance rate at that specific school. Also, it is limited by not identifying legacies, athletes, or any other category (like ED) that have the potential to give an admissions bump.
No knowledge of raiseme.
I don’t know much about raiseme either, but suspect it’s less than accurate because it looks like students are self-reporting their own information and admission results. It probably doesn’t take all admission factors into account either (factors like essays, LoRs, etc)
Naviance scattergrams can be fairly accurate for targeting if the counseling department enters information correctly including round of admission…but you can never tell which students had hooks (URM, recruited athlete, legacy, full pay, etc.) unless the GC tells you.
Naviance supermatch seems a bit rosy in categorizing schools and again misses application components and hooks. Your student’s GC can help categorize (and adjust) schools that come up here on searches.
Besides your kid’s GC, CC posters (if there are enough responders) tend to be fairly accurate in categorizing schools, given enough information about the student, but still won’t have viz to essays, LoRs, etc.
@silverdad1 RaiseMe is utterly useless for assessing your chances at a college, given that most selective to highly selective colleges (Tulane, University of Rochester etc.) practice holistic admissions that takes into account factors outside of GPA/test scores/the raw number of activities (which is likely how RaiseMe computes your “chances.”) I DO recommend filling it out, as if admitted, you are guaranteed AT MINIMUM (does not stack) the amount of merit scholarship that RaiseMe offers (though at Tulane and URochester I received much more than what RaiseMe offered.)
Though my school didn’t utilize Naviance, it’ll likely not provide you with anything more than a rough idea of where your academic stats fall in-comparison to previous applicants from your school.
However, note that looking at such graphs can be very misleading, especially when looking at outliers (they might have had a “hook” such as being a legacy, recruited athlete etc.) and you don’t know what extracurricular activities they need (though the range of academic stats between those getting into HYPSM and the rest of the Ivies/T20s is VERY similar, the extracurricular and other activities/essays etc. needed differs A LOT.) Applying Early Decision vs. Regular Decision can confound the data provided by such graphs as well, given that ED applicants tend to be more through and show more interest than RD as well as are a sure-fire way for admissions officers to raise yield rates, increasing the acceptance rates. ED applicants also tend to be those who have hooks, such as legacy, recruited athletes etc.
Definitely talk to your Guidance Counselor as @Mwfan1921 says, but know that they likely don’t know the complete story about an application (applicant’s essays etc.) as well as the sheer variability between admissions officers’ decisions even between similar applicants.
Hope this helps! Good luck with admission!