My kids were asked to fill out an information sheet about the schools they applied to, were accepted to, and if they received any scholarships (from any source). I know mine did a terrible job as one was invited to the ‘senior awards’ ceremony because she did note she received a talent award (no mention of the merit award from the same school) and the other wasn’t even invited. When I asked her about it she said she didn’t know what the form was for so just didn’t fill it out.
I can’t imagine the results are very accurate. I doubt kids put down the schools they weren’t accepted to. Our naviance was run by a volunteer parent. I’m sure she did the best she could but I doubt it was accurate, especially for the non-accepted results. Our GCs did their best, but their first job was to get students OUT of high school and the second priority was to get them into state schools.
Reading all the comments, it seems that the level of customization and commitment to data integrity depends on the school. Ours took this really seriously.
^^Ours takes it really seriously as well. When a school manages the Naviance data well and over several years, it can be a great tool. Students input where they are thinking about as juniors, then where they are actually applying as seniors, build their resume, etc., so much info is put in here. But to earlier points… ours has a Senior Survey within Naviance they have to complete after May 1st inputting where they were admitted, denied, scholarships, key factors in their choice, if they got into their 1st or second choice, etc, - I believe our GC’s customized this survey that they all have to complete. They are reminded to keep it updated all the time and given a homeroom to tidy up their Naviance info. Then the GC goes over the survey with each of them to close out the data, while seeing how they feel about their college choice. It really helps the GC’s as well - they can easily identify patterns - as can parents & students. Interesting stuff.
I don’t remember exactly how it worked, but I believe our school had some way of hooking Naviance up to the common app. They sat the kids down to make that happen early in senior year. Scores/GPA were all entered by the GC, application plans, actual applications and results entered by the kid. I did notice some discrepancies in some areas … looked like incomplete data … but it remained helpful, and yes, the GCs are in the loop on where kids do or do not get in. It’s their job to know that stuff. Even when I was applying to school many many years ago, the relevant staff at the school knew where I’d gotten in before I did.
All that said, maybe Naviance deserves its own thread so as not to distract from the key info in this one.
Naviance at our school is pretty much useless as a guide to top school admissions. Our small private school doesn’t have many applications to top schools, so a lot of scattergrams aren’t shown at all for privacy reasons, and many others have less than a dozen data points. And when you have few data points, and don’t have the ability to filter out hooked kids, athletes, and URMs, then the results aren’t even slightly helpful.
I think it’s clear now that Naviance might be a useful tool to those who have access to it. As I stated, my D never used it and fared pretty well in admissions. If I have to list a single resource that my daughter found helpful, apart from this website (really, I found it more helpful than she did), I have to nominate college data. It lists comprehensive info on every school in the nation, which is very time-saving. It gives students an (admittedly flawed) ability to estimate their chances, which is useful as a guideline. It allows students to look up CDS info all in one place, as well as providing a lot of other useful info about college admissions. It also enables them to compare themselves to students across the country who have applied to the same colleges.
The other site which I know my D found useful was Niche. She wanted student perspectives, and in her opinion, Niche was the best place to get them. Parents may roll their eyes, but there is no denying that it is generally true that kids trust other kids more than they trust boring adults:-). She wanted to know what students thought of their professors, of partying, of academics, of career centers, and so on.
There are tons of free resources online and at local libraries. I also highly recommend students try to get a good college guide book such as Fiske or Princeton. She ended up referring to it often, especially when she was trying to make final decisions. The Financial Aid Handbook also has a lot of really good admissions advice and is very useful for navigating the FA process.
Yes to both of those. Niche was definitely a factor in the final countdown for my kid. And I collected and organized stats from collegedata to soothe my anxious soul. Not so much about admission chances (though I did note admission percentages), but so that I could sort all the options by factors that were of interest to us. It helped us with trimming, and it helped us keep some schools in the mix whose qualities we might not have fully appreciated at first.
Neither of mine filled out a common app, and I doubt very many from their school did either since about 1/3 didn’t go to college at all and most of the other 2/3 went to state public schools and filled out state apps.
@citymama9 , in my limited experience, yes, that’s the norm and I think it’s because a student wouldn’t have stats to use for making a fit/comparison before then. And perhaps because some schools, at least, do not want to be a protracted admissions test for college but an educational experience. Or so I would like to believe!
@citymama9, my kids’ private school did not give access until junior year. My understanding is the reason was three-fold: to avoid unnecessary stress/hype around the college process too early and because data can change a lot over a year or two and as stated above, the student’s grade/testing picture would be incomplete. What you might see reported during 9th/10th grade might look very different from data available during your child’s senior year.
Our small private school also used Naviance. Our students were given access to the program in the 10th grade. Just before common app time, our college counselor sat with each student and help them complete the “common app FERPA match” to insure that pertinent information like LOR’s and counselor recommendations were transmitted to the school’s through the common app.
Naviance was an excellent tool for our sweet girl because it really helped put things into perspective. She started getting mail from so many colleges including several with very low acceptance rates. Naviance allowed her to see the realities of applying to college with very low acceptance rates.
We’ve had access since beginning of freshman year. It is helpful for looking up schools. The stats not so much but that is the fault of our school district I guess.
We get access in 9th. There is a checklist of recommended tasks for each year.
9th is to fill out the career interest profile (fairly long online quiz), personality quiz (Myers-Briggs), and make a tentative 4-year plan with your GC.
10th is to make a resume (they do this in 10th grade English), attend a career center presentation, fill out the “game plan” (career interests and type of college environment), review 4-year plan with GC, and take the ACT PLAN (which may be called something else now).