<p>I'm currently a junior and i've been looking into schools i'm interested in. I'm trying to figure out where I stand number-wise. Would it be wiser to to rely more on naviance's statistics for my individual school or CC/data sets? I'm asking because I know that different schools are looked at different by colleges.</p>
<p>I would say go on neither. Type in Common Data Sets onto each of the search engines on the schools for every college that you are interested in. Then, scroll down to Part C of each of the data sets and look at the data.</p>
<p>I would say that the data sets that the college itslef publishes about median SAT scores, etc would be the most reliable things to look at, but that if you were to choose between relying on Naviance/CollegeConfidential, you want to pay more attention to Naviance. </p>
<p>People can skew their applications as much as they want to in Chance Me/"Admissions Decisions" Threads, but Naviance doesn't lie. Most Naviance databases are built over several years, so you can see general admissions trends at your own school, and the graphs are really easy to immediately understand and access.</p>
<p>Naviance is helpful because it can take into account school reputation, but at the same time it says nothing about ECs or otherwise.
I'd just get as much information as you from all different sources</p>
<p>Naviance is way better because you need different stats depending on your school, state and many other factors. If you looked at Naviance for 2 schools a few blocks apart--one a NYC elite private high school and the other an underpreforming public school--what it took to get into any college would be completely different.</p>
<p>The only real failing of Naviance, as I see it, is that it does not tell you who was a legacy, recruited athlete or URM. Some schools do produce Naviance like charts with those thing noted. </p>
<p>If you attend an affluent school with lots of legacies, athletes and URMs, the Naviance data can be useless.</p>
<p>The common data sets are informative when you weigh in all the factors. They give medians, so scores include all of the hooked candidates. At many colleges that can be up to half the class. So if you don't have a certain hook, you probably need a higher than median score. Then you have to look at where you live, you need way higher stats if you're from an affluent area of Boston or LA than if you're low income and from Alaska or New Mexico. </p>
<p>Taken together with an understanding of hooks, geography, type of school, income and all of the key factors, you can get a very good sense of what you need.</p>
<p>This is why the chances threads are meaningless for most schools, no one ever gives all the necessary info to make an informed idea possible.</p>
<p>Use the college's own info and your school's Naviance. The type of high school you go to really can make a big difference if they have a decent applicant history. Anything you read on CC, including this, you really need to be careful about; a lot of kids on here are very high achieving and a lot of posters on here might be totally imaginary...</p>