<p>Donemom,
I was asking what the policy was at taxguy's kids HS. It makes a difference when I'm trying to figure out if a my son could get into a certain school (or if it's worth appying) compared to a similar student at taxguys HS. Since our school doesn't release stats that are as easy to read as the scattergrams, I'd like a better idea of the make-up of the stats.</p>
<p>Wootton, as well as the rest of Mont. County Public high schools, do indeed use a weighted grading system. APs and Honors classes are given an extra point (A = 5, B = 4) on the weighted scale. Both the regular GPA and WGPA appear on transcript.</p>
<p>The AP policy differs at each high school within Mont. County, but in general, it is a very open AP system - that is what Dr. Weast, the school superintendent, has been leaning towards. Generally, at Wootton, frosh (1-3 classes worth - approx 35 - 80 kids each year) can take AP US History. Sophomores usually only add AP US Govt, but the math accelerated sophs might also add AP Bio or Chem. Usually junior year means 2-3 APs. Lots of juniors take Lang and World History. Other junior year electives: Statistics, Econ, Bio & Chem again, Psych, Art History, etc etc. Senior year is a free-for-all; pretty much everyone takes Lit, one of the Calc's is typical, Physics is now open, and all the prior junior year APs are good additional electives.</p>
<p>I like this school. It is a large public high school in Southern California.</p>
<p><a href="http://sonicpixel.net/ahs05/%5B/url%5D">http://sonicpixel.net/ahs05/</a></p>
<p>taxguy,
Gotcha. I just wasn't sure if you meant that both honors and AP's get a whole point or just AP's. It does make a difference with the whole gpa points possible how the grades are weighted, how many AP's can be earned and when they can start taking them. I do think our school is doing it the right way.</p>
<p>I'm going to send this link to my son's GC to see if they can possibly get us hooked into naviance system. thanks!</p>
<p>dstark--i like the arcadia high school scatterplots also and refer our high school students to them to get a ballpark idea of the stats required to get into the CA schools and the super-selectives. Our school is also a large public hs in Southern California, but without the substantial Asian contingent.</p>
<p>ellemenope, looks like USC is getting more and more popular. Is that what you see?</p>
<p>MomofWildChild,
regarding the paying for the database concern, I would be happy to pay a subscription fee for access. This info is so helpful. The colleges provide common data sets, incoming freshman profiles, & all sorts of public info to help potential applicants make decisions about where to apply. (That is also responsible of the colleges, i.m.o, because any info which might help to <em>decrease</em> apps also decreases the frenzy overall & increases the possibility that a student will target more "smartly.") So I think both high schools and colleges do a public service to make college admissions info accessible.</p>
<p>I know of at least one h.s. in our area where it appears that the restricted access issue is a political (rear-end-saving) one. The private h.s. has a great, competitive curriculum, with high-academic-end type students attending & "over"achieving. There is a new college counselor there that is under-performing. Lame acceptances this yr, which were esp. inexcusable given the caliber of the class, & some of the parents are furious. One of the first things that many 8th-grade families do when searching private h.s's is to check out the college acceptance list, & the stats associated with such a list, if available. I think this GC does not want a measurement of her performance made public, for fear it will reduce competitive freshman apps to her school, & thus cost her her job. Either that, or the school may not want that info out for similar reasons affecting profile/reputation. The problem is, families also make decisions based on absence of info -- not just "negative" info. </p>
<p>There are also families who don't want their children attending super-selective h.s.'s with high-profile college admissions, out of concern it will pressure a student needlessly to be in that environment. Those are all legitimate reasons for needing info from h.s.'s.</p>
<p>ellemenope, is this a link that we can get into as a guest? If so, how?</p>
<p>I don't think the payment for a database issue is a strong concern. I was so impressed with these samples that I visited the naviance site and it appears that there is a flat fee for the "extended edition" of $895 per school per year, plus an additional $195 per school per year to get the "family connection". There doesn't seem to be a fee based on number of users, how much access the school grants, etc. -- if fact, the fact sheet says that the program "lets you require a user name and password for each student user or choose to allow guest access to yoiur site -- with or without a password", so Naviance doesn't seem to care. </p>
<p>I am really getting interested in this product and will look into it more to see if I want to raise it with the HS. If the program really does perform as the promotional materials claim (a big if, I know) then this is a very good product at a very reasonable price. For what it's worth, I saw that they now have an agreement in place to allow GC's to submit school reports, mid-year reports and teacher recommendations electronically to the Common App organizations.</p>
<p>Iderchi, there are ways to show college admission statistics without paying the fees. Arcadia High School is one example.</p>
<p>Point well taken, but I was thinking more in terms of the programs ability to make it faster and easier for a GC to do a number of things, not just prepare the scattergrams. At a large public HS with only a few GC's trying to handle everything (like my S'), a good software tool can be a godsend.</p>
<p>I think that using the Naviance system really puts the students and parents on more of an even keel with that of admission's officers. I can't imagine why any school system wouldn't want to use this software.</p>
<p>[MODERATRATOR'S NOTE: A link previously posted in this thread has turned into a spam link, and thus is now deleted.] </p>
<p>USC has always been able to scoop some of the top kids from our school by offering very, very nice scholarships. Also, USC gets a lot of our great music kids who couldn't get into UCLA. </p>
<p>The private school in our area that is very popular and that gets kids with scholarship $$ is University of San Diego.</p>
<p>I'm obsessed with the scattergrams. It's like crack, only virtual</p>
<p>The link to one of the old Naviance threads <a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parent-cafe/245650-naviance.html%5B/url%5D">http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parent-cafe/245650-naviance.html</a>
is in this thread
<a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parent-cafe/400041-revolving-thread-topics-linking-old-new.html%5B/url%5D">http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parent-cafe/400041-revolving-thread-topics-linking-old-new.html</a>
Lots of the school access codes and pwds are available to compare.
I kinda wish that the data was available for all to see, and to be honest, MOWC, the cost to the schools for the database was very inexpensive. However, now that Hobsons bought Naviance (and college confidential) that may change--</p>
<p>After reading about Naviance this morning I asked D2 about it at breakfast. Appears her school uses it and she forgot to tell me about it!!! Tried to get in to the site but she forgets her password and doesn't have time to retrieve it before going to camp. grrrrr.....</p>
<p>It's going to be a looonnnngggggg summer.</p>
<p>Heres another thread with links to naviance. Some of the older thread links arent working for some reason
<a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/cornell-university/115922-if-your-school-guidance-has-naviance-please-give-me-code.html%5B/url%5D">http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/cornell-university/115922-if-your-school-guidance-has-naviance-please-give-me-code.html</a></p>
<p>NorthMinnesota - At my D's school parents are given their own Naviance user names and passwords, linked to the student's account. Maybe the GC can help you while your D is gone....</p>
<p>Yes, it is the same at my son's school. He has an account and the parents have an account. The guidance counselor or whoever is working during the summer can help you out.</p>
<p>Our high school had it and I was too lame to realize what it was. Just like I was late to CC.</p>