I don’t think that most public schools have Naviance. It is an additional cost plus time the counselor has to spend to fill out information for each student. Also, different schools offer a different number of AP classes. Some HSs offer all of the AP classes/tests. Some offer a handful in only certain core subject. Some let any student take a test, some allow only juniors and seniors to take the AP tests. What is important for each student is to show that they took the most rigorous classes that they could handle at their school. S’s school doesn’t have AP classes; however, the kids are allowed to take the AP tests (at $91 a pop). The counselor cautioned to not take an AP test unless you have time to study enough to get a 3, or better yet a 4 or 5. S will take the AP Math B/C and maybe the Physics AP after he finishes calc 2 and advanced physics in spring since these classes kind of follow the AP subject matter anyway. I don’t think he will take any other AP tests.
Ds thought the PSAT today was “weird” compared to the SAT he took this month. He said he thought the SAT was easier so hopefully he is right and aced that SAT so we can stop worrying about it! He didn’t do any prep for the PSAT so that may be why he thought it was weird.
Our school has Naviance but we haven’t logged in yet. Need to get together with ds and do that soon. Right now he’s too busy. One thing for sure he doesn’t lack for EC. I am the human taxi cab!
I think the reason the counselor hasn’t gotten back to me is her school has 1300+ students and only 2 counselors, and I know they are busy getting the seniors’ counselor rec’s ready to send to colleges. But hopefully I’ll hear back soon. We still have time and our hands and thank goodness we’re planning in advance. I’ve heard some people wait until Senior year to start thinking about college, and to me that is just insane!
I was looking at the school website and it isn’t an official report but it shows how many go to 4 year colleges, the mean SAT score, etc. and they are very low.
One thing to think about APs if you don’t actually take the class that I suggest you consider. Colleges want you to take them if available. And they look at grades in those courses obviously. But they don’t care much about AP test scores for admission purposes (my understanding, YMMV). If you want college credit for APs, the tests are important. That will mean your S/D will skip intro courses freshman year, when they may be having issues learning how to study (maybe for the first time) and will be trying to fit in. Personally, depending where my D ends up I will suggest she take the intro courses and enjoy herself. That’s just me.
@Collegecue I’m also the human taxi cab! I’ve been driving my daughter here and there for Homecoming supplies and float building, plus the dance, of course. Then the past two weeks we’ve gone twice (to five stores) to get supplies for a Physics project. She in on our city’s Youth Leadership Committee and has a weekly meeting, and she’s also a student rep on the school board. I’m constantly dropping off and picking up. It’s exhausting after working full time and commuting. Plus we’re squeezing in college info sessions and visits.
Naviance is your friend. Very helpful insights into how students in your high school fare in the college admissions game. Very useful tool.
My 9th grader said that the Reading and English were easy. He felt that they were both like a normal 9th grade test he would take and not like a test for 11th graders. He felt the calculator math was easy but he had some problems with the non calculator part. He guessed that he may have got 1 or 2 wrong on the Reading, none on the English and 5-8 on the math.
My 11th grader also felt the Reading and English were easy. He felt they were easier than the Oct SAT and the Sept ACT. He also had some problems on the non-calculator part and felt the calculator part was easy. He thought the math was harder than the October SAT. He thought 1-2 on the English wrong , 1-2 on the reading and 5 on the math.
I will be interested in how they actually did.
@MSHopeful Do we have the same daughter? I got one word responses. Nothing revealing.
Time will tell.
My S simply stated, “alright”. We’ll see what that means at a later date. LOL
@MSHopeful – 95% of the Stanford freshmen who came from schools that ranked did rank in the top 10% of the class, but only 35% of the freshman class who enrolled at Stanford in Fall of 2014 submitted class rank. You can google common data set for most colleges (a few holdouts seem to bury the info, always making me suspicious). Percentages for a few other random schools:
Cornell: 28%
Princeton: 29%
Dartmouth: 34%
Villanova: 33%
I would ask about Naviance as I find that almost every public school I know uses it. Granted, narrow sample of the tri-state area (NY, NJ & CT) as well as MD and Boston suburbs. When my 2014 son went through this process, I had to ask for the Naviance password as he was leaving 10th grade, since we planned to visit colleges the summer before Jr year. By the time my 2017 son entered the same school, Guidance was running seminars introducing the 9th graders to Naviance. We have had it for eight years, so the data points for the class of 2008 represent those who applied Fall of 2007. Too long ago to be of any use since the admission landscape has changed so much since then.
Hobson owns both Naviance and CC. Quotes from CC used to appear on the home page of each college, but I just checked, and they seem to have disappeared. Instead our GCs have started adding notes after meeting with the college rep. (One GC meets with each rep before the rep meets with students.)
RE: AP Scores. I agree about colleges not caring for admission, although useful in unusual situations such as home schooling or a student who wishes to demonstrate that he studied independently when an AP course was not offered. Agree with @2muchquan that you want to seriously consider if your child will want to jump right into a 200 level Chem class, having not taken Chem since Jr year. I think AP credit is great if it allows a student to take a lighter load one semester, but I don’t love the idea of just placing directly into the upper level course. I believe it is Dartmouth that no longer accepts AP credit, but not 100% certain, as Dartmouth is not on my son’s radar.
RE: School Profile. Guidance should be able to provide it but there is no universal format and the quality and usefulness vary tremendously from school to school.
OK—way too much info here!
@CT1417 I have never heard of Naviance! But then again, I have found our high school guidance counselors to be very much focused on high school only and not the college process really. How do students access this? Stop by and ask or what?
RE: Today’s PSAT.
Son thought that the calculator section was more difficult than non-calculator section. I have no idea why, but he did not find math difficult. (Math is his thing. He took Math II subject test last May/) Something about last four bubble-in questions were more difficult than other questions.
He found CR more of a time crunch than regular SAT b/c regular SAT allows more time, and reading took time. Passages and questions seemed identical to regular (new) SAT, but not enough time. Writing was easier, in his opinion.
Prep consisted of completing the one released practice PSAT and then one CR section from new SAT.
I have given up trying to calculate cut-off scores and selection index. As soon as I think I understand it, I read something else. Time will tell…and now we wait for next Thursday morning.
My son’s high school also uses Naviance here in TX. It is helpful to see how many kids from previous classes were accepted to certain schools. I love the scattergrams. I’m a sucker for interesting charts.
@carachel2 – if the GC is too busy to meet with your child, perhaps stop by and ask the guidance secretary? Or email the GC? Each student will have his own log-in user name & password. Naviance will capture his academic info (GPA & standardized test scores). Each HS decides which features of Naviance they wish to use. I don’t know if they pay more for more features or how that piece works, but I do know that different schools display different info.
We can go in and see a ‘scattergram’ which plots each applicant’s GPA & SAT or ACT score and his admission decision for a college: deny, accept, WL. (The info is anonymous. Date from all applicants from all nine years appears on the scattergram.) Another page lists # who applied, # admitted, # enrolled at that college. A third page lists number ranges: avg stats of RD & ED applicants, lowest accepted RD & ED, average accepted RD & ED.
Have you had a Jr Planning night yet? I was surprised to see our school schedule it for October this year. I could have sworn it was well into November a few years ago. Everything is accelerated.
I never heard about Naviance before and found out our district has it and I was able to register for it. Surprised they have my S’s data from 6th grade on wards :-).
Finally got to ask S about the PSAT last night. He is a math kid. He said both math sections were “ridiculously” easy. He finished with enough time to review his work completely. The English section was easier for him than last year’s PSAT, but not a slam dunk. He was glad that there weren’t the grammar sections anymore. But he isn’t the kind of kid who is an in depth reader. So we will see in December how it all shakes out. It’s done and now we can both stop worrying about it. On to completing the Eagle Scout project and working on his robotics stuff.
@mtrosemom - What robotics does your son do?
He is part of an FRC team. It was formed last year so this is their second year together. They made it through the build and competition and even got a rookie team award, but didn’t advance past regionals.
My S competed in FLL and FTC. His team retired so no longer competing. FRC is more intense given the short season. Good luck to him and his team.
Robotics: DS is trying to be on both an FTC team and an FRC team. Both are startups this year, because the school’s FRC team was retired. The FTC season is first, so DS thinks he can somehow do both. Seems a bit delusional to me, especially considering all his other ECs and classes. The FRC team needs to clean out and wire a place to do the building this fall. At least there is supposed to be less pressure on these teams than on the old FRC team, which was for seniors only.
Ranking: Our HS and the whole district still ranks and we get 5 different GPAs reported on the transcript. And, that doesn’t include the UC capped GPA, which has its own quirks. Ranking is by “9-12 Academic Weighted GPA”. I would think that schools in TX and CA would mostly need to keep ranking, at least internally, because the state schools have admissions categories for top 7-8% and top 9% students. My impression is that a lot of private schools don’t rank and that places like Ivys and Stanford take a lot of kids from private schools.
Naviance: Public school in CA here, and we have it. The freshmen set up student and parent accounts. Freshmen have to do the Myers-Briggs test in Naviance plus a 10-year-plan (don’t know why it isn’t 8). Last year they wrote resumes. I think DS has to do a brag sheet by the end of this year and probably some other things. The English classes mostly do that, because they are specific to a student’s class year. DS’s scores haven’t shown up in Naviance yet, but I suppose that will happen sometime. The scatter plots are interesting: guess the sport for the athlete who got into Stanford with a 1700 SAT. Ours only shows weighted GPA in the scattergrams, wish we could switch that to unweighted the way you can switch between SAT and ACT.
AP: DS has taken 4 tests so far and will take 3-4 this year, depending on how his IB Spanish teacher thinks he can do on the AP Spanish test. (Agree, no point in taking it if he can’t get at least a 3.) I don’t think he’d skip the AP for an actual AP class he was taking, though; seems like that would raise questions. He is so exhausted after taking an AP test, more tired than after SAT tests; 4 this year will be tough. He did take the AP Computer Science test without having taken the class. We wish his school would offer AP Physics C, but it’s pretty impossible that they would ever have 25 kids who wanted to take it. Anyway, I think he should take the Intro to Physics with Calculus for majors class wherever he goes. I’ve heard that having the AP Physics C credit might actually be a problem at UCs that might force you to use the credit vs. taking the class.
Taxicab: I’m driving lots, but at least DS drives one way. He’s up to about 30 hours of driving practice. Needs to get 50 before he can take the license test. He could take the test the end of this month if he were ready. We have friends who didn’t bother to log driving time and said their kid hadn’t even driven on the freeway when he took and passed the license test. We are sticklers. He still needs to learn parallel parking and we should take a weekend trip to someplace with real traffic and more complicated freeways.
School profile: An old one of ours is found via Google, but I haven’t seen anything recent. I don’t think it was a very effective format, but hopefully it has improved. I would guess that our GC might give me a copy if I asked.