An alternate title for this thread could be “WHEN THE HIGH SCHOOL DROPS THE BALL”
D’s high school made it clear to students a year ago that all transcript requests are now to be submitted through Naviance. So, weeks ago D submitted her transcript request on Naviance and also updated her profile on Naviance to show that she had submitted her ED application to the college. Then yesterday her GC sends all her senior advisees a message stating: “Naviance doesn’t e-mail me when you make a transcript request, so YOU have to e-mail to tell me to send a transcript and by what deadline.” Huh?
Maybe Naviance doesn’t e-mail per se, but aren’t the GCs supposed to have way to monitor/check student profiles? Not only that, D went in to see her GC in August to submit required forms and to have her sign an ED form, so the GC was well aware of D’s plans. (One reason she went in personally was that guidance hadn’t responded to her e-mailed question about application procedure.) D also informed her by e-mail when she submitted her Common App. To add to the confusion, in the past it wasn’t the GC who actually handled transcript requests; kids submitted a form to the guidance secretary, she obtained the GC signature, and then sent them.
A different GC that I spoke to on Back to School Night mentioned that there was a change to Naviance with regard to teacher letters of recommendation requests also, and she said “I hope I can figure it out.” D’s teacher recs have also not been submitted, despite D personally requesting letters from teachers last spring, requesting again in August by e-mail, and touching base personally recently. The latter was handled politely, inquiring if they were having any trouble with the new Naviance procedure, yada yada.
The bottom line is, THE SCHOOL HAS NOT SUBMITTED ANYTHING for D’s app.! D was very responsible and timely on her own end. I wouldn’t be that concerned yet, since the ED deadline is still a few weeks away, except for yesterday’s GC e-mail stating that basically she wasn’t responsible if things didn’t make it to the colleges by the November deadlines. Really? D sent back a rather firm e-mail reply, but this is just crazy! I am pretty confident D’s materials will be completed because we will be on their case. However, students who weren’t as organized as she was are really going to be in deep trouble!
My daughter’s college application year was the second year our high school had switched to Naviance. The first year (the year she was a junior) was a very “glitchy” year. Parents and kids and teachers and the guidance office all had problems navigating it and making it work correctly. There was a LOT of last minute scrambling, and many stressed people!
I believe that in the end, although there were a lot of problems that year, it did not negatively affect any one student’s application results. (People got in where you would have expected them to get in.)
My daughter’s year was a total change for me as a parent who had helped my two older navigate the old system, but the students and guidance office and teachers found it to be a slick tool. It was nice to be able to see exactly what had been completed and submitted by who.
There were still face to face interactions between students and guidance counselors and teachers writing letters of rec., but it worked well.
Yes, I agree. The sheet with application instructions given to the students clearly states that if you request a transcript on Naviance, the counselor will get a notification that you made that request. If she isn’t getting those notifications, then it’s likely because she failed to sign up in the system or something like that.
Still, what recourse do the poor students have when they have done everything properly but the adults fail them?
^ That’s a problem irrespective of Naviance, or college admission for that matter. And could be something they come up against as adults. Keep good records and follow up.
D has been following up, and I have used this as a teaching moment for her about just that. Still, can a student really write a letter to a college outlining all the meticulous steps he took to get application materials submitted and include his documentation as proof, and expect the college is just going overlook the lack of an official transcript or teacher recs?
They won’t overlook it but they will give time allowance. They will let the student know the info is not in and it will be up to the student and parent to harangue the GCs as necessary.
As an update, D touched base again with one of her recommenders. The teacher said she has not been able to get into Naviance to upload D’s letter. Apparently, the site is not accepting her password. She has asked for tech help, but has not gotten any yet.
Naviance (which is owned by the same company as the Common App) released the software for teacher recommendations, transcript requests and counselor report very late this year- around mid September. We all expected it to work like in previous years and were blindsided with these new changes (which continue each week as they try to work out the glitches). They also changed how to request the letters and then they had issues with notifications to teachers and counselors as well as uploading the letter to the common app where a school uses the naviance/common app match system. They also did not give counselors and teachers a set of good instructions for use. It has occupied a lot of discussion at the NACAC listserve (the website for counselors and colleges) and Naviance keeps on trying to workout the software issues. I have seen changes in Naviance in working with my students each week. Frankly I suspect it will really be a nightmare come December when a lot of teachers are trying to upload their letters.
I wouldn’t be so hard on your DD’s counselors and teachers-an important part of the process was changed on them last minute and trust me Naviance is getting an earful from them over at NACAC. Like your DD, I had my students reequests LOR last spring and we are still trying to get them uploaded to applications that my students submitted weeks ago. The notification to teachers and counselors with this new software is not working like in the past so I basically am having my students gently nag their counselors and teachers each week. So far that method is working to some extent. I recommend you and your DD do the same and be thankful you are discovering this glitch now rather than on January 1.
For others wondering about what I am talking about, go to your Naviance page and under the “colleges I am applying to” tabl scrool all the way to the bottom. On the far right you will see a “live linK” to click on for teacher recommendations. When you click on it you will be taken to a new page which lists every teacher at your school and you have to click on their name. There will then be a box just below that says "send to all school on your colleges that I am applying or select school. You also will have a box for writing the teacher a note. My students and I have unfortunately discovered that there may not be a trigger for counselors to know where students are applying so some high schools have asked my students to also request the counselor send a LOR following the same method I just described. The counselor isn’t really sending a LOR but instead this lets them know that they need to send counselor reports for ED/EA schools. Counselors have also told my students that if they add any schools to their list after first making the request, they need to go back into their Naviance and add the teacher and school following what I just described as well as send the teacher/counselor an email and a classroom visit. Again I can’t imagine what stress this will add to the process.
In the meantime it has made me very popular in my neighborhood as parents surround me in the grocery store to ask me about this issue and I have been having freebie sessions at my house to walk them through this process. Please not that not every school may follow this method on their Naviance since it may allow another method, but for most high schools this is how it works in our area. Good luck and make sure you do your apps early so that you can get the LORs in early.
Itsv, thank you so much for that information! I initially was blaming Naviance, but then when I didn’t hear of any other kids at D’s school have similar problems ( and I just asked around to parents today at a school event), I began to wonder if it was just D’s GC and teachers.
PS-- I had D check Naviance just a few minutes ago. We don’t seem to have the feature you describe.
I think every system may be a little different. We don’t have a “live link” option described above, but we have this below on that same page of “Colleges I am applying to.”
“Letters of recommendation
Some colleges require letters of recommendation to be submitted with your application. Please visit the letters of recommendation section, accessible from the main colleges page, for more information.”
You click on “letters of recommendation” and it takes you the list of your kid’s schools and has teachers name for rec(s), deadline for rec, and whether it has been submitted, add/cancel option. It appears very organized, but I have no idea if it is actually gonna work next week when teacher uploads. We will see.