An Entire Thread on Naviance and Prep Schools

HarvestMoon1
Fri, 19 Feb 2016 20:11:52 +0000

D’s boarding school was meticulous about entering data on Naviance and we had data covering the previous 4 years. We found it very helpful in crafting our list of matches and safety schools and somewhat helpful for her reach schools. Not all boarding schools are as meticulous in maintaining the data so YMMV.

The scattergrams were useful to her in determining whether a particular school was a safety/match. If she could determine that a school had rejected no one from her particular school with her stats in the last 4 years, then that is a pretty good indication of a safety. Sure, she could be the first rejection, but that’s why your final list has at least 2 or 3 safety schools.

We also found the scattergrams helpful in managing expectations for D’s first choice school where she had decided to apply early. The data was clear about the percentage of the applicants accepted with her stats from her school in the last 4 years. So while we left the decision up to her, she pretty much knew going in what she was up against. It worked out well for her in the end, but as parents we felt better knowing that she saw the data and presumably had no misconceptions about her chances. She was also educated about “holistic” admissions by her college counselor.

Our Naviance data also included a breakdown of how many students were accepted by each school and then whether they matriculated or not. So from that data we could definitely see that there were a handful of schools that really had a strong relationship with her school. Year are year you could see 20 or 25 acceptances and even if only 20% of those matriculated each year, the same number of acceptances in subsequent years. So those schools might have gotten an extra “look” when putting together the final list.

While it has it’s limitations, we found it very useful. My second child’s school does not have Naviance at all. Thankfully it is a VERY small school. When we lamented to his college counselor about not having some data points, he pointed to his head and said “it’s all here.” So presumably we will get some guidance in that regard anyway.