<p>I posted this here since I know a lot of parents in particular are interested in naviance and may have a better understanding of how it works. </p>
<p>I just had a few basic questions:</p>
<p>-how far back does naviance track data for a certain school, is it only as early as when the specific school started to use naviance or does it ever go back further?</p>
<p>-does naviance only track high school seniors who go straight onto 4 year universities or does it track (at all) students who choose the community college route and then transfer? I've actually also heard that even some less popular/less known private 4 year colleges may not be included? does it track ultimately which college the student actually attends?</p>
<p>-does naviance only track acceptances/rejections or does it go further and track college graduation/performance?</p>
<p>I think the schools that purchase Naviance access have a lot of flexibility in how they want to handle some of things. However, a few thoughts:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>Item 1 - I don’t see how Naviance could go back any further than when the school started using Naviance. It simply would not have the data to do so. The data comes from your high school, not from the colleges themselves about acceptances, waitlist, etc. Let me also say that high schools are not always great about keeping up the data. I was looking at D1’s account (college grad now) when I was in it the other day for D2 (hs senior). But I can see both kid’s accounts. I can see that they never actually updated final status of some of D1’s waitlist schools. Also, D2’s ACT scores are not entered and probably won’t ever be (they are good, but not as good as her SATs, so I think the GC won’t bother to put them in) So if someone wanted to see her admissions with ACT scores, they would see the projected ACT from her PLAN (which is not accurate, actual ACT score was higher).</p></li>
<li><p>Item 2 - Again, Naviance probably isn’t going to have transfer info. Even if the high school is aware of it, they probably don’t have time to enter it. Also, while I have not found any colleges “missing” from Naviance (admitting that ours are not truly obscure), often the data is not shown on the graphs to protect student privacy (so the graphs are blank if only a couple of students have applied to a school).</p></li>
<li><p>Item 3 - Same limitation. Only if the high school puts it in, which I expect is almost never done.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>Our school only has stats for the past couple years and then only if there are enough kids applying to various schools that you can’t figure out their data or if all of the kids have agreed to having their data on the site–so, basically, very few schools have info accessible for privacy reasons. I don’t find it a useful site for tracking acceptances from our school as a result.</p>
<p>If you want more of a range of data, look at the Cappex site. They have the same graphs there but just more people reporting. Now, someone is going to jump on this thread and cry that the information there is “self-reported” to which I say, so what. Why would anyone put in that thy are a 4.0 with 2380 SAT score to see if they can get in someplace when they are really a 3.0 1500??</p>
<p>AFAIK, Naviance doesn’t track anything. The school tracks it; Naviance is just software. And college acceptances are entirely based on the students’ self-reports. Our school does not make available the data it collects through Naviance; student and parental interface with Naviance is limited to requesting and verifying the sending of school-related documents (transcripts, LORs, etc.).</p>
<p>“Does anyone know if multiple schools in a District can combine their data so results for more obscure schools can be visible?” - Probably not. There can be a lot of variation among hs within a district. </p>
<p>To look from the college perspective (lots of data points, but not a scientific sampling)… you could try mychance website.</p>
<p>I was hoping for something that could capture the impact of geographic diversity and maybe whether there is a city effect (preference for kids from a particular super cool urban area ;)).</p>
<p>Our high school GC can also see Naviance data from neighboring high schools. Parents cannot access this, but the GC can.</p>
<p>As noted Naviance does not show schools at which only a couple of kids applied/got accepted. E.g. My daughter is the only student from her school to ever apply to her college. This would clearly tell anyone looking her SAT scores and GPA…which are not a matter of public record.</p>
<p>Just FYI, our guidance counselor told us that if the Naviance said there wasn’t enough data to show the graph, to ask her and she could give us a feeling for what D2’s chances are based on past experience.</p>
<p>PNW - Some school do seek geographical diversity, especially for areas far from campus. Not sure it would be quantifiable via Naviance. Perhaps try the CC threads for the particular colleges in question.</p>
<p>The best source for community college transfer data, is the Transfer Advisor or Counselor at the community college in question. The advisors at each of the three campuses of our local community college have excellent records for this kind of thing.</p>
<p>I did notice when the kids added schools they were applying to to their list on Naviance that it did show how many kids from the school applied to that school last year and how many were accepted along with the average ACT/SAT and GPA. It wasn’t on a graph but it did give you an idea of what the results from the previous year were.</p>
<p>Naviance is only as good as as a school makes it. When our school got Naviance they went back and put in the previous three years worth of data. They had the records in other forms. You don’t however want it to go so far back that the data is no longer useful. </p>
<p>Our school tracks acceptances to community colleges as well, but not whether they went on to transfer to better schools. I don’t know how you could track that.</p>
<p>It definitely doesn’t track how students actually do in college. The reasons for not doing well in college often have very little to do with high school preparation, than with other issues.</p>
<p>At our school reporting to the GC is optional. Many students don’t bother. Especially for waitlists or rejections. I’ve heard that a lot of students only report acceptances. So while the data is somewhat useful, it is less so than one would assume.</p>
<p>“Our school tracks acceptances to community colleges” - That surprised me. I had assumed all CC have open admissions. </p>
<p>This is from our locl CC website - "Our open-admission policy means that anyone seeking to better themselves through education is welcome at our college. If you are at least 17 years old, you will be admitted automatically… Admission to the college, however, does not ensure acceptance into any specific program. "</p>
<p>“Our school tracks acceptances to community colleges as well, but not whether they went on to transfer to better schools. I don’t know how you could track that.”</p>
<p>That’s kinda strange lol. Personally, since I figured community colleges were open-admission, I didn’t even apply to my local cc until AFTER high school graduation anyway…
I wouldn’t see the point of applying way early during fall semester of senior year and then “anxiously awaiting” for the results lol</p>
<p>I did some more looking on Naviance because I was curious. There are 3 years of past results on the site along with this year’s results. For the few schools I looked at, the results are not accurate. One school shows no one going to that school from the 2010 class yet I personally know 2 kids at that school, went directly from high school and have been there ever since. Our kids applied to some schools that no one else from our school has applied to in recent history so I can see their numbers on there but their scores, etc. are blocked due to privacy issues :D.</p>
<p>“Naviance is only as good as as a school makes it. When our school got Naviance they went back and put in the previous three years worth of data. They had the records in other forms. You don’t however want it to go so far back that the data is no longer useful.”</p>
<p>I missed this the first time, this actually answers one of my questions in the original post…so it seems some schools do manually input information from even before the school started using Naviance…whereas I suppose other schools may not track that information to begin with.
You know, when I was applying to colleges back in high school I didn’t even think that my high school might be alerted D: </p>
<p>Then again, I’ve heard some high schools use purely student self-reported information for their naviance data and I can’t imagine that’s always accurate</p>