Parents of the HS Class of 2021 (Part 2)

My thoughts are that Naviance sucks and its data, at this point anyway, is not reliable. I believe the reports that say Cornell’s ED apps increased by 36%, MIT by 60%, and Harvard by 30%.

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Makes total sense. If it’s the first year I guess you don’t have a lot of data either to see what things look like in a normal year. It’s sort of like how when we had Naviance and they went back too many years. At one time our school would get 10 or more kids into USC (CA). Now we’re lucky if we get 5 in because USC became the it school. Likewise, Vandy next became the school everyone wanted to go to. It was top on my daughter’s list until we visited and she realized they weren’t top for what she was interested in. That was probably a very wise decision because that year we had 10 kids apply ED. I can’t remember if we had any do ED2 but did have a few do RD and ultimately did send maybe 5 or 6 but that’s brutal to have had so many apply.

But I hear you, anything to pass the time before decisions this week. My son has 1 final every day between now and Thursday. I have no idea how he is so mellow and just studying for his tests. Thank god he isn’t like my others, stressed about the tests AND the ED decision. But I think he also feels there are many great programs that are out there and if not this one then another one will be happy to take him. He has that it is what it is attitude and that is a great trait. I should’ve known that when he was my most chill baby. :slight_smile:

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Most schools don’t show scattergram info if less than 5 kids applied/got in/etc.

I think I’m kind of glad our high school doesn’t use Naviance, it would just be more information for me to obsess over :crazy_face:

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My daughters used to, but you’re probably right and what our school uses now doesn’t even show weighted GPA so it’s sort of useless. There can be plenty of kids with a 4.0 but that doesn’t mean anything if they don’t take that many honors or AP courses at our school.

I remember and ours didn’t even show any data if only a few applied so we couldn’t even see how many applied or were accepted at all separate from the scatterplot.

I can’t decide if I like that our school uses Naviance or not. It definitely does give more information to obsess over! Sometimes I feel reassured by my kid’s little dot on a school’s scattergram, but then realize it probably isn’t a true representation of how “safe” the school is since he’s applying to a competitive major (engineering). And its 2020, so nothing feels logical or safe!

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@evergreen5 we use Naviance and the bar graph showing how many students were applying this cycle (and previous years) was a new feature that appeared this past August, right after the Common App went live. I was shocked to see the numbers at all the ivies and SLACs creeping up every time I checked back. By the time school started it appeared that 6 students were applying to Middlebury! Once school started, the GC confirmed that they appeared on the graph if a student had them checked on the ‘colleges I’m thinking about’.

The bar graph disappeared entirely in October, probably due to the panicked phone calls to the guidance department. Unfortunately the accuracy of Naviance is only as good as the info being added and updated, at least at our school.

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I’ve gotten the message that I’m out of love!

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Re the large decrease in apps on Naviance, the same thing happened at DS school. I too had tracked the numbers and there has been a very material decrease in many schools, but not all. Ours has info for the past 5-6 years and the numbers for this year were pretty reasonable but now are down significantly on some very common unis.

Also, DS had put quite a few schools in his list that he decided to no longer apply to and we tried to delete the school from his list but it is not possible, so it is not like a lot of kids went in and deleted…no idea why this happened.

His school uses Naviance as a means to submit recs/transcripts/etc so it is fairly accurate on acceptances I think as this is the way a kid would get the final transcript sent.

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That is so 2020!

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No, those words are steeped in misplaced hysteria. Take it down a notch people and your kids will be much healthier for it !

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I’m guessing you have this info by now, but CMC will release ED1 decisions at 5pm PT on 12/15. Good luck!

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The new avatar- let’s just say it is the very best problem to have :purple_heart:

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Wow, can’t leave for night without missing all this awesomeness! Congrats @JanieWalker @Solstice155 and anyone else I may have missed. Whoohoo!!!

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Oh Congratulations!!! So happy for you!!!

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Which classes under AOPs do you recommend to improve SAT / ACT and AMC tests.

I know there was another thread, but I am interested in what you all would gift as a thank you for those that provided letters of rec for your kids. Ideas?

@Meddy When my D19 finished her high school, she gave an amazon gift card and a lovely thank you handwritten card to all her teachers who wrote her recommendations. To other teachers who did not write recommendations for her, just a gift card :slight_smile:

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D did not take AMC exams. But personally I think the preAlgebra was the book that gave her the strong foundation to build everything else on.

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