If there were separate scattergrams for UCLA L&S and UCLA engineering (or each engineering major), that may show how much of the overlap is due to selectivity differences by division or major, versus by evaluation of subjectively-graded aspects of the applications (e.g. essays).
I feel like naviance would be useful for spotting “yield protection” denials at lower ranked schools that are notorious for rejecting students that are unlikely to attend. George Washington, American, and Baylor have all been accused of this at my school, and it would be interesting to see if having too high of stats actually does make a rejection more likely.
Agreed. But how much of a variance in stats do you think there might be between an engineering and L&S at UCLA? I have no clue, but I’d guess that you must have high stats for both, though higher in the case of engineering. And then how do EC’s, SAT II’s and essays enter into the equation. My point is that there is no perfect prediction tool, especially when you have human beings as the AO’s. But Naviance will tell you if you’re scores and GPA are reasonable for a particular school.
Last year, a Compass Test Prep exec came to my daughter’s school and told us that 70% of the perfect test score/stat kids are denied admission at Stanford. So, even the best most-detailed scattergram won’t give yield 100% accurate results.
It doesn’t appear that GW, American or Baylor protected their yield in the case of my D’s school here in the SF Bay Area. The number of applications from her school aren’t like the number applied to the UC’s of course, but in any case, the high stat kids were accepted. Scattergrams look normal to me. But in 3 years of data, only 1 student has chosen to attend each of those schools (one for each school). So, those schools appear to actually hurt their yield with apps from my D’s school.
So, I think Naviance could be a useful tool to help firm up speculation on yield protection for some schools.
Certain sequences have the “UC honors designation” on honors level classes taken in 11th grade as prerequisites for SL classes. At our school, an SL bio student will get 2 semesters of grade bumps and SL physics will get 0. SL spanish taken junior year (grade bump), taken senior year (not included in UC GPA). Both show the same rigor by graduation.
Some full IB students will only receive 2 semesters of grade bumps (in grade 11) for HL English. Others can get to 8 semesters 10-11 depending on which science, math, and foreign language taken.
While D’14 and S’16 did not take full IB both had same rigor (3HLs, 3SLs). Full IB students add HOTA (no 11th grade bump). Both S and D had 4.0uw 10-11, but UC GPA for D (4.1) and S (4.3). Their HS GPA in Naviance are nearly identical.
It is likely that both have “maybe” ranges of mixed admits and denies at the top end, but the L&S “maybe” range extends lower than the engineering “maybe” range. I.e. it is likely that there is a stat range that is almost no hope for engineering applicants, but is within the “maybe” range for L&S.
For other schools, the differences can be more obvious. Some CSUs’ selectivity varies considerably by major. SJSU reveals its thresholds afterward (see http://www.sjsu.edu/admissions/impaction/impactionresultsfreshmen/index.html ), but Naviance information by major may be helpful for applicants to those CSUs which do not show this information.
Another example would be CS at UCSD, UIUC, or Washington. A separate Naviance plot for direct admission to CS may be helpful to show how competitive that major is relative to admission to the school overall.
No one tool can take the place of research. At the end of the day, each student, with or without help from mom and dad, needs to come up with a realistic list of colleges.
You can’t count on the guidance counselor or College Placement office to do it for you-- there are simply too many kids for them to do it effectively, Kids who rely on them are bound to be given basically the same list— here’s your major and GPA, here’s the list we recommend.
But Naviance can be a great help to people who are willing to see it for what it is: one tool of many.
For some kids, simply having a list of “Schools I’m looking at” in one place is a huge help. The ability to click on any one school’s name and get a rundown of what that school offers is helpful. The ability to look at the scattergrams, at least for schools that kids from your school have applied to, and see their results, can be helpful.
And, as a teacher, it’s helpful for me to be able to submit my letters of recommendation onto Naviance. It means that the kids for whom I’ve written letters know that my letters are in.
Naviance isn’t a one stop cure all for kids who don’t know where they want to do. But it’s a helpful tool for kids who are in the process of applying and deciding where to apply.
I like the visual nature of the scattergrams. It makes it very clear that there isn’t some magic number in terms of grades or scores that will get you in to the most selective colleges. There’s usually a big area where there are just as many red and green circles. And only a fool would think those weird outliers belong to ordinary kids. (Including the possibility that someone misentered data!)