All the best to your D. Great outcome!
What classes did she sign up for?
Haha, @wisteria100 , no idea! I do know she chose some quantitative reasoning class that has nothing to do with numbers. Archaeology or something like that? Smart move! I did a class in college to meet the math requirement, it was called Liberal Studies Mathematics (aka Math for Dumb_____!) I can only remember doing an exercise on seeing how many ways the letters in the word Australia could be recombined. I passed, hallelujah.
Anyway, for new readers to this thread, I have a few more insights to add. Obviously, average excellent kids do very well in the process if they do things right. One thing that I am sure worked in my D’s favor- she was very thoughtful about each application and submitted every application almost from scratch, apart from all the basic info. If she knew a college really valued community service, for example, she emphasized that activity on her app via the supplemental essays. In several cases she reordered her activities list. In total, my D ended up getting into 9 of the 12 colleges she applied to, two from WL, and two with acceptance rates of 25% or below. With her chosen college, I think that in addition to being full pay, (not flattering myself that that was not a factor) she convincingly communicated in her follow up with admissions why she would be a good fit for the college. Colleges that practice holistic admissions are all about fit, so if your child is able to show why they fit at that college, they have a better chance.
I also can’t overestimate how important high grades are. My D had good grades, but she admits she could have done a little better. For those tippy top colleges, grades are super important, and I think her GPA hurt her at the very top colleges she applied to. Be sure your child isn’t sacrificing grades for ECs or excessive AP classes, which is a common mistake. High test scores are important too, but high grades show a good work ethic, which is important at top colleges. Hope some of this is beneficial to you and your kids.
Yup. My son’s story is a different one. Different kid, different stats, etc. but it conforms to your experience in all significant respects. We are happy with the outcome, but it required a lot of research and strategic thinking.
One thing I might have done differently: There were a couple of schools I thought were great fits where he had a shot, but didn’t get in. One was a match and one was a reach, and both were some distance away so we felt justified in not visiting, but the critical error for both I think may have been missed opportunities to express interest in other ways. THEY reached out to him on a couple of occasions and he failed to pick up the ball, despite repeated nudging on my part. If I had it to do all over again, I would have pressed him a little harder. Most kids just don’t get how significant it is when you fail to respond to an overture like that. No guarantee it would have made a difference, but I’m pretty sure those lapses were strikes against him in the “holistic” evaluation. I suspect if he’d visited, he might have been more motivated, so there’s that, too.
Having had a parallel experience to @Lindagaf , I would completely echo her advice. To it I would add…
- Trust Naviance over CC when it comes to chances. DS went to a BS with a very tough grading scale. His GPA --simply reported-- would have had CC predicting rejections where Naviance suggested he had a chance. Naviance was right.
- Keep the grades up senior year, especially if your GPA isn’t what you’d like. If you don’t get in ED or if you end up on a WL, this will show college readiness when you update your application for reconsideration. Senioritis can kill your chances. And it makes you look like someone who worked for the grades rather than the knowledge.
- If your application requires explanation, I am guessing that a school with holistic admissions is a better bet. A larger school with a zillion applicants can dismiss you on stats alone. A LAC --even a very selective one, may be open to what you can bring to the community but it will be up to you to ensure that part of the application is strong. Good essays, good recs, demonstrated interest, and good interview.
This is an important addition, and not stated nearly often enough on CC.
Admissions officers know the strong schools in their region for their college. While a strong student can come from anywhere, a strong school generates quality applicants to the college year after year. The Admissions Officers learn the school well enough to adjust for its rigor.
Vanderbilt is a good example in our case. People on CC sometimes call it a reach for everyone, but for our school it is a solid match for students at the 80th percentile, and basically a safety for those above the 90th percentile. And since we send several students to Vandy each year, we have reason to believe that the admissions office knows and likes our school.
Yes. Naviance is very helpful for assessing your particular kid’s chances. Both for the reasons indicated by @hebegebe and also because chances can be regional in nature. (There are a couple of schools I’ve seen bandied about as matches here recently, but from our district, which sits relatively close to them? Fuggedaboutit.)
But still proceed with caution, remaining generally aware of roughly how many acceptances (especially ED) might be due to athletic hooks, etc.
Oh, and one other thing: At least in our district, Naviance flags your kid’s stats in red if they’re below a specific threshold for that school (I forget what that is – average accepted maybe?). That does NOT mean your kid won’t get in (something that initially gave me a heart attack). Just that you should manage your expectations accordingly.
Unfortunately, some high schools don’t publish stats on Naviance for colleges if a certain number of kids don’t apply. This is to protect student privacy. This was true for my daughter, so Naviance was all but useless, as she applied to mostly small LACs. However, I am sure it is much more useful for larger colleges which more students apply to.
@Lindagaf, the GC is privy to the Naviance stats when there are insufficient numbers of applicants to protect privacy. They will be as informative as they can be while respecting other students’ privacy.
For all the talk on CC and the assumption being made that of course everyone who is anybody has Naviance, according to wikipedia, “The company reports that its “student success solutions” reach more than 7 million students at nearly 8,500 schools in 100 countries”, 8500 schools, including elementary and middle schools, and not all in the US. Hmm, apparently there are over 35,000 high schools in the US. Yes, everyone, just go look on Naviance, it’s that simple.
OK, so if you don’t have access to Naviance, obviously it’s not an option. Still good advice to consult it if you do. Some people have super useful and involved guidance counselors, others, not so much. You use what you have.
Naviance was useful for our kid, but not always easy to interpret as for some colleges he had higher scores than most applicants, but lower grades. I think in the end his not quite perfect grades didn’t hurt him as much as we feared because 1. He was in the to 6% of the class 2. His worst grade was in honors chemistry freshman year 3. The poor grades in Latin were probably forgiven as many AO’s consider it a difficult course and 4. His math teacher gave him a stellar recommendation even though he had a bunch of B+s.
Naviance works much better in a large school like ours than small ones and even we have to be careful because a large URM population means that some kids may be getting into schools with lower grades or scores. (As our son probably got into Vassar for being male BTW. 
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Thank you, mathyone. The blithe suggestions to “just go on Naviance” are so let-them-eat-cake. It’s only relevant for the (generally affluent) schools that have it – AND for student populations that apply in droves to elite schools. (And yes, my kids’ school did have Naviance.) But there’s no shortage of believing that that situation fits every high school on CC!
Our school started using Naviance this year, so there’s no data from previous years yet. Is there any way to see data from our region in general or do I have to rely on the counselors to upload the data?
To supplement our school’s Naviance, we got Naviance info from other high schools from friends attending there. Just gave us some more data points to compare (and obsess over!)
Our small HS does this, but for LACs that my D was very interested in I asked the college counselor if I could see the data and she let me take a peek at it. So they have the information in there, and it’s worth asking more about it if it’s a school your kid is interested in. I wasn’t given a printout or anything, but a quick glance at the graph was pretty revealing.
Tip: Many high schools allow open guest access to their Naviance data if you don’t have your own. There might even be lists of them in posts on a very popular college discussion forum. 
“Let them eat cake?” Seriously, @Pizzagirl ? Should people remain silent about a possible resource and their experience with it just because not everyone might have access to it? Knowing it exists in the first place is useful information. (Or would you prefer it be kept as a tightly held secret by people who have access?) People may find workarounds, or ask their district to implement it or ask a friend in another district for information that might offer perspective. Or they might not be able to do any of that, but the knowledge that it exists may inform their understanding of what they’re up against, which can be useful too. It’s not as if anyone is saying “Have your nanny ask your chauffeur to ring up your private college counselor in Bermuda for advice.”
How did this suddenly become a conversation about Naviance and some kind of negative statement against those who use it? It is a resource like any other, and furthermore, some schools, such as ours, require students to use it if they are planning to apply to college. No one would lambast anyone for choosing to buy the Fiske guide, or to create an account on a college website such as this. Please folks, let’s get back on track. This thread is about advice for parents helping their kids get into college. If anyone has some advice to add, please feel free.
There had been a thread with Naviance guest passwords many years ago, but the passwords are probably out of date. It would be great if someone would start a new one!
How much faith do you all place on Naviance data results? I have a son who sits right on the intersection of X and Y when looking at results for his top 2 college choices. There are a couple of green acceptances surrounding his circle on the graph. To the right of his data, all acceptances. To the left and below, limited data. Some acceptances, some rejections.
So, I am not sure what to believe. His stats do not fall to right side or the left side of the x/y lines on the graph. He is smack dab on the corner I think he has a decent chance, but maybe that’s just optimistic thinking. He’s a pretty regular student, decent grades, decent ACT, sports, some clubs etc. Nothing outstanding, just decent.
He has 2 safeties ( financial too) on his list where he sits way out in the top right field of Naviance graphs, so I am not worried about those.