<p>We've been looking at Naviance quite a bit lately to see where our son would fit on the graphs.</p>
<p>Because he has high SATs (1980 right now from first sitting, awaiting results of second sitting) and so-so grades (3.3 weighted), there are absolutely no points on Naviance for anyone like him, accepted or rejected. I can draw a vertical line and say, "Hmmm...this college has never rejected someone above "X" SAT score" or draw a horizontal line and say "but this college has rejected plenty of kids with these grades". </p>
<p>All the graphs sort of look like this (with my son being the X) - doesn't really come out exactly right here, but you get the idea....
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rrrr XX
rrr </p>
<p>He can't be the only kid with his stats that has applied to these schools, can he? Mostly looking at big publics....</p>
<p>Remember that Naviance scattergrams only show data for your son’s high school, not for everyone. It will also depend on how long your school has subscribed to Naviance. My son’s school has only existed for four years, so only the more popular schools have much data. In most cases, my son either the only one or one of a few students at his high school applying to his selected colleges.</p>
<p>Also, at my D’s high school…Naviance plots only schools where MORE than a certain number of students applied (I think it’s 10 or more). My daughter was the ONLY student to apply to her college in the high school’s history. If they plotted her, everyone would easily be able to identify the SPECIFIC student which is a violation of confidentiality. So…if your student is looking at schools were very few students have applied, that could also be a reason why there are no other plottings.</p>
<p>Yep, my younger son is in that position too. B-'s in Latin and B’s in English bring down his GPA though he’s got quite a few A’s as well. His PSAT was 206 and I imagine his SAT scores will be similar. There are very, very few data points. Basically I’m going to assume that all the colleges for which his odd look good SAT-wise are reaches because of the grades. He’s got some unusual activities and interests and is likely to write a really good essay, that I hope will make up for the grades, but I’m not counting on it. In the meantime we’re also looking at the many schools where B students are plentiful. There are some nice small publics, medium size privates and schools out of our draw area (south or midwest) where I think his chances would be improved.</p>
<p>Our school also doesn’t post scattergrams when there are too few points, but they do post the average in the college compare section even when only one point makes up the average! I don’t really care if people can figure out which point my kid is on a chart, but I realize others feel differently.</p>
<p>One thing you can do is look at the graphs for a school that has more history using Naviance. A few years back there was a thread about how to access other schools’ (not all are password protected) graphs.</p>
<p>My D has a different sort of problem with Naviance. She only joined her current school in junior year and her GPA looks much higher than the other kids because it reflects the extra weight of the APs that are only available from junior year. In effect her GPA is undiluted by the unweighted freshman and sophomore year grades. Add in her good SAT scores and she occupies the top right corner of all the scattergrams, giving artificially optimistic estimates of her chances at all colleges.</p>
<p>I’m sitting here holding the college results of a major prep school’s graduating class from a few years ago. It includes GPA, standardized test scores, and hook status. </p>
<p>There are a decent number of kids with numbers like your son. It’s hard to get into the school, so test scores are high, even for the kids who don’t do great after they get in.</p>
<p>I sought this info because I’m in a similar situation, but with different numbers (2300+ SAT, 3.5 GPA). Different schools react in different ways. For example, I’d almost certainly be rejected from Georgetown, but have a decent chance at Hopkins (and would probably get in if I applied ED). Of course, things might be different now as colleges have become more selective every year.</p>
<p>Are there any specific school you want result from?</p>
<p>I met a woman last week who mentioned she has a HS junior. Since I have a college sophomore, we got to talking. Her son got 2350 on his SATs. He has a – ready for this?? – 1.7 GPA. She said he’s brilliant but just doesn’t do the work.</p>
<p>So don’t feel bad. There is a place for your son!!</p>
<p>But the worst of it is…when your son’s data point gets entered, everyone may know who he is. That’s the bad thing about having an unmatched GPA and test score, unless of course, he hasn’t mentioned his good test score.</p>
<p>This is quite similar to my own son’s profile (3.5 W and 2100 SAT) His application list was heavily weighted for matches for the GPA. He was only interested in private, urban schools. And because of an aggressive savings plan we need not require FA.
He has been accepted every where he applied, half offering merit scholarships. Perhaps he was too conservative. He only applied to one reach. In retrospect I wish there had been a few more reaches. Please don’t flame me, I am not complaining. I was just relating our experience.</p>
<p>Our school does not use the scattergram portion for the reason of being able to identify students. What we did find helpful was the college match section, we lowered GPA slightly and test scores to get a more accurate group of matches/safeties. </p>
<p>Although D had perfect match scores for a number of schools, she still recieved waitlists in a group of LAC’s as the pool of applicants is so much smaller you are dealing with many more “holistic” reviews.</p>
<p>For some reason, our Naviance won’t let me change his stats for the “match school” section. There is a button to do so, but it doesn’t seem to work. The match schools it currently lists for him look like extreme safeties when I pull up the scatter plots…</p>
<p>I think the school has been using Naviance for quite a while now as there are many points on the public school graphs. One school that seems completely out of his reach (according to our Naviance) is University of Michigan…at our school, the average accepted student has a 4.1 weighted GPA. But he is a double legacy there, so I’m thinking he may as well try for it. (But whether to drive 12 hours to visit is another story…do you make that kind of drive to show interest, thinking that interest may help admission, or is it a waste of time and gas?) Of course, he does fall within the SAT score requirements. When I pull up Maryland, I see a graph similar to what I posted above, where there appears to be no one at his data point who even applied. </p>
<p>I’m really trying to find some reasonable match schools for him, a safety he would like (his counselor recommended Indiana as a safety, although it’s awfully far away) and a couple of reaches as he does have some good ECs/leadership. We’ve been looking at public for cost reasons, but if there is any change that aid from a private school might bring it to the same cost as an OOS public, I would encourage him to look at that as well.</p>
<p>do not discount University of Michigan, they evaluate applicants on a point system. they get points for various things they have done and EC’s, for example if they know cpr they get some kind of points.</p>
<p>The rolling admission is a help here too, getting the app in very early ( like end Sept) is an advantage. Then you could always go look at it if he gets accepted.</p>
<p>hkfl, no flames, that’s very interesting. I’ve been thinking that for a kid with SATs higher than GPA extra reaches might be a good thing - as long as he has some good safeties and matches.</p>
<p>4Giggles, are you sure about the point system at Michigan? I think they scrapped that several years ago during the AA controversies - at the very least, I think they severely revised it to restrict most of the EC points. However, the advice about submitting apps early is spot-on.</p>
<p>OP, Is he attending public or private? If it’s a private school, he will likely do better in schools with which your high school has a relationship. For example, I know kids from Jesuit high schools often do well as far as admissions to Catholic colleges. </p>
<p>If your school is public, why don’t you look up some publics in your area? This is the thread with Naviance codes. They may not all still work. </p>
<p>Oh, and as far as changing matches… Try to scroll down on the page. After you press the button that you want to change, if you scroll down, you should see the gpa and SATs which you can change.</p>
<p>That’s the most extreme case I’ve heard of. In my generation (when high school grade averages tended to be lower at most high schools), I knew of some friends with high (but not that high) two-section SAT scores who dropped out of high school because it was boring. </p>
<p>It will be interesting to hear where such a student ends up going to college.</p>
<p>If this person can get his act together at a community college (the guy with the 1.7), he sounds like a great transfer candidate. Many top colleges use SATs for transfer admissions.</p>
<p>Or, he took the PSAT and does the paperwork he’ll be a be a national merit semifinalist, which is probably worth some merit money at some school somewhere.</p>