My school is connected to Naviance and I feel like it’s just bringing my hopes up.
It’s almost the opposite of the comments I get on this forum. I have an average GPA and an average SAT (which will be significantly higher after my second attempt) but apparently for one of the colleges I’m looking into, kids from class of 2018 and before from my school with similar stats to mine have got in just fine. And on this forum, with the comments I’m getting, I’m treating that school as a high match.
For the record, my school is a STEM magnet school. And It’s not just 1 or even 5 kids with similar stats to mine that got accepted. It’s a solid 16 kids (I counted the dots)! I’m not sure if Naviance is whack or what.
Should I be trusting the information I’m getting on there?
Naviance tells you how other kids from your school-- with the same courses and the same basic test scores and GPA-- have done in the past. It does not promise the same results for you.
So apply to the school you’re talking about.
But know that things can change radically from one year to the next.
Naviance was pretty accurate on my daughters results. She got into 4 of the 5 that she applied to and Naviance showed that she was a stretch for the one she didn’t get into. Honestly, she was there for the GPA but her SAT needed to come up about 100 more point. It wasn’t her top choice school so wasn’t a big deal to not get accepted to her.
I will say, my D’s go to a very large High School over over 5,000 students so the number of students included in the data set might have an impact on credibility. The other factor you don’t necessarily know is what the intended majors are of the others in the data. Some majors can be harder to get into than others at some schools.
Many different factors but we did find it to be a helpful tool but not the only tool we relied on when selecting schools to look at and apply.
Thank you all for the information. My school is quite populated (2000 students) so I think the information is more on the accurate side, but it’s just the vast difference my stats mean on here and on Naviance for schools that I was concerned about.
Naviance is a great starting point, but remember it doesn’t show which students had hooks. An example I often use is my son’s school and the relationship with Princeton. If a student just looks at Naviance it looks like a disproportionately high number of students is admitted to Princeton each year - yippee! The problem is that Naviance doesn’t show that those admitted students have hooks. Not just one or two of them - all of them. We did a little digging and found that for approx the last 5 years only students with a hook (mostly recruited athletes but a few legacies or URM) were admitted to Princeton. Number of unhooked students admitted to Princeton - zero.
Start with Naviance, but understand it’s not a complete picture.
Another question I had is using my unweighted or weighted GPA for Naviance. My Naviance has the option of comparing my unweighted or weighted GPA, and the SAT or ACT with other accepted students from my school on a scattergram. I am using weighted GPA and SAT to compare right now. Does it matter whether I use the weighted or unweighted GPA for comparing?
Also look at the timeframe on the Scattergram. Ours often shows many admittances, but looking above the chart, few of those admittances are from last year…sometimes zero.
@sunnyschool The timeframe for the scattergram seems to be 2015-2018 right now. And above my scattergram, it says # of applicants, # of acceptances, and # of enrollments from my school in the specific year.
Naviance is helpful but agree it doesn’t let you know hooks or if they applied ED or not which can make a HUGE difference.
Also, you might be looking at a data point of ACT/GPA of an admit but they only submitted SAT – or vice versa. It may vary by school whether all test scores are put in or not. Bigger the school and more applicants the better the data. I’d say any scattergram with fewer than 10 applicants should be looked at as a very general guideline only.