Naviance

Parent Cafe
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<p>jackief
I’m not sure why your school would give out Naviance passwords in December of Junior year. Naviance data is useful when planning what schools to visit, which students may be interested in doing in their sophomore year. You could always get a password from an older student in the H.S.</p>

<p>The difference with having your own account is that you show up on the scattergram as a red circle, but how hard is it to figure out where you would place anyways, I mean you know your scores…</p>

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<p>chocoholic- it is actually Feb. of Jr year when the give out the pw’s… I’m wondering again if it is a cost issue where they only pay for so many licenses and the seniors are done with it by then.</p>

<p>Are you saying that the only difference you see if you are logged in as a regular user vs. a guest is identification of “you” ? If that is the case, I can see them not giving out the pw’s until Junior year, when they probably do the data entry for that class. But since I don’t see scattergrams now, does that mean they don’t exist at all?</p>

<p>I might ask a parent of an older kid for the lowdown, but I don’t want to come across as one of “those parents…” Our plan now is to make an appt with the counselors after we get 10th grade PSAT scores back. One reason I want to see the school specific scattergrams is that our school is very tough in grading (some teachers have given only a handful of A’s in long career) so it is hard to compare oneself with the stats on the college websites. My daughter is starting very initial research now and I mostly want to put her grades and her school in perspective with what she sees for admissions stats.</p>

<p>Thanks
Jackie</p>

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<p>jackie-
When I looked at the pricing info last year, it seemed pretty reasonable and had a flat fee for the parent connection section (not a “per person” rate). I am having a little trouble finding this information on their site now, but will keep looking.</p>

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<p>jackie–
Here it is, from Naviance’s website

They no longer list the price, though :)</p>

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<p>Thanks for the info jym. I will try to get access next school year, but I am still wondering if it is as extensive as the data on some of the other school sites listed.</p>

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<p>Wow, thanks for the links. I checked out a local ‘good’ school and am finding the scattergrams quite interesting.</p>

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<p>You can sort of compare at the SAT 2400 data that dates from 2006 vrs. the SAT 1600 data.</p>

<p>I have a question about the data, assuming the data I viewed is similar to other school’s data: Many of the scattergrams have similar characteristics, with a solid green ‘acceptance’ area at the far top right and, for competitive schools, solid or near solid red rejections in the lower left region. with mixed results somewhere inbetween. When you see a lonely acceptace in the low GPA/low test score area, I assume they were hooked in some way. But what explains the lonely rejections I see in the high GPA/high test score region? Several of the scattergrams had one or two rejections sitting out all alone in a sea of green acceptance boxes. Any thougths?</p>

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<p>

</p>

<p>Anyone’s guess, but conceivably:</p>

<p>A kid who has a problem on his record (arrest, suspension etc.)
A kid that appears to have an untreated mental illness/ behavior issues
A kid with no ECs
A kid with too many ECs
A kid who skipped a course the college might have expected. (I don’t think it helped my math/science kid that he decided he didn’t like the science research program.)</p>

<p>or just a kid with bad luck. Particular at the really elite colleges it’s very hard to predict who they will take and who they won’t.</p>

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<p>I would think that the high-up rejections are likely students who the college believes are using them as a safety? </p>

<p>some interesting background info. from
<a href=“http://susanohanian.org/show_outrages.html?id=5305[/url]”>http://susanohanian.org/show_outrages.html?id=5305&lt;/a&gt;

</p>

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<p>Sometimes kids are forced by their parents to apply to “Dad’s Alma Mater.” There have been stories (true ones?) of how kids have attached notes to their applications saying, “My parents are making me apply to your college, but I really don’t want to go. Please reject me.”</p>

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<p>Another reason is that required courses for admission were not taken. I know of a nontraditional student who was in a foreign country for 3 years of high school, and finished his senior year in a US high school. He did not have a foreign language in the eyes of the admissions office at one college. He is completely bilingual, but English was his foreign language. The admissions counselor did not pick up on that and he was rejected. At that point the student was too insulted to even have his application revisited. He would not have attended that school, b/c he felt that they did not want him. These are the stories that are not told on a scattergram.</p>

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<p>We don’t have Naviance. But we also don’t have students going to colleges, much less competitive colleges. More than 50% drop out of high school. oy!</p>

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<p>While the scattergrams are interesting to look at, they really are not that helpful. There are so many things they do not show. One might look at Princeton for example and see what SAT scores and grades those had who were accepted from their high school. It also shows an average of the scores and grades those had who were accepted. What many dont realize except seniors at the end of the school year when all data is entered, is that some might not have gotten in with their SAT scores and grades but for other factors. For example two students at my school with lower SAT scores than many who were rejected were recruited athletes, another with lower SAT scores and grades then those who were rejected was an under represented minority. One who was not a very compelling candidate was a legacy whose family had given a fortune and whose famlies had a connection that went back generations. One also cannot tell if someone who was admitted had exceptional artistic talent with international and national recognition.
So one might look at the scattergrams for their school and say, this is a school that I have a good chance of getting accepted to based on my SAT scores and grades, but it really is not an accurate picture.
The scattergrams are just interesting and fun to look at and that is all.
Here is my advice,
If you want to go to an ivy league or top tier school of that level, you need to apply to many of them. There is often no rhyme or reason why one school will take one and not another. There are those who get into Harvard but not Cornell. Yale but not Columbia ect. If you are going to apply to schools in the top tier you need to have SAT scores that generally are in the range, top grades and have passions and interests that will make you stand out from the 20,000 plus applicants who are applying.
If applying early realize that single choice early action or early decision at Harvard, Yale and a few others is really not that much of an advantage. The very top students in the country apply in this pool. Applying early to a school like Cornell is an advantage for someone trying to reach themselves in. There is no such thing as reaching oneself into Harvard, Yale and Princeton. Anyone they accept early they are likely to accept regular decision.
If applying to ivies or other top ten schools apply to at least five of them if you like them and would be happy there.<br>
Have a nice number of schools in which you have a little higher SAT scores than those the school lists, but schools you really love.
Have a few schools in which you have stronger SAT scores that what they list but you would love to go there.</p>

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<p>Reason some of the links above don’t work.</p>

<p>You can’t just cut and paste a link from one page on CC to an new post.
If the link has been abbreviated, it won’t work in the new post.
Look for a telltale … in the middle of the url of the link.</p>

<p>The way to get around this is to go to the target page from the original link and then cut and paste the url from that page into your new post.</p>

<p>:)</p>

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<p><a href=“https://connection.naviance.com/fc/signin.php?hsid=hopkinton[/url]”>https://connection.naviance.com/fc/signin.php?hsid=hopkinton&lt;/a&gt;
password: hillers</p>

<p><a href=“https://connection.naviance.com/fc/signin.php?hsid=kinkaid[/url]”>https://connection.naviance.com/fc/signin.php?hsid=kinkaid&lt;/a&gt;
Enter as a guest - password “college”</p>

<p>(Kinkaid School (competitive private school) in Houston, TX)</p>

<p><a href=“https://connection.naviance.com/fc/signin.php?hsid=newtrier[/url]”>https://connection.naviance.com/fc/signin.php?hsid=newtrier&lt;/a&gt;
New Trier High School in IL, competitive public HS.</p>

<p><a href=“https://connection.naviance.com/fc/signin.php?hsid=albany-academy[/url]”>https://connection.naviance.com/fc/signin.php?hsid=albany-academy&lt;/a&gt;
password: cadets</p>

<p><a href=“https://connection.naviance.com/fc/signin.php?hsid=redbankcatholic[/url]”>https://connection.naviance.com/fc/signin.php?hsid=redbankcatholic&lt;/a&gt;
password: CASEYS</p>

<p><a href=“https://connection.naviance.com/fc/signin.php?hsid=centralcatholic[/url]”>https://connection.naviance.com/fc/signin.php?hsid=centralcatholic&lt;/a&gt;
No Password required</p>

<p>These work because I cut and pasted the URL into my post from web page itself. </p>

<p>If you just cut and paste these links into another post, the links in the new post will not work - even though they “look” identical.</p>

<p>(But some of the Passwords no longer work)</p>

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<p>I can only find 2 HS’s in my metro area to compare to, and they are small. Anyone here happen to attend Pace Academy or Westminster in Atlanta and happen to know the guest password?</p>

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<p>Like others, I also have seen the exceptional stat on the top of the graph who is rejected, despite a small cluster of others with similar or not quite as high stats. I think that there are some significant stretches, wild guesses, & rationalizations on this thread – as to the typical pattern, or possible pattern, of such rejects.</p>

<p>The reason I say that is that some of us have made a practice of investigating this. It’s more possible to do so when the school is quite small, the students’ profiles, personalities, preferences, etc. are quite well known, & there is much sharing of info going on. Very often this investigation includes directly questioning those applicants before or after admissions decisions.</p>

<p>Here are the only patterns I have found:
1- unimpressive e.c.'s, and/or very few of them
2- nonchallenging courses. (In our school, it is virtually not possible to “skip courses” that a rigorously selective college would require, so I’m surprised to see several statements about this on this thread. But naturally it’s possible to take no or few courses with an Honors or AP designation if the student chooses not to, or doesn’t qualify.)
3= <strong>the most common stated reason of all</strong> – inattention to the application, unenthusiasm about it, lack of focus as to statement of purpose, or cockiness. (“I blew it off.”)</p>

<p>Unless one or all of the above 3 are true, I have not seen any student get admitted to some Ivies & not others, from our school, ever. What I have seen, though, & often, is Ivy-admits (include cross-Ivy-admits) wait-listed over & over, year after year, by the high-profile LAC’s. Typically, such Ivy-admits can only get in to a highly rated LAC if that student is a legacy at the LAC. That has been the consistent history from our school. </p>

<p>On the low end – the irregular admit with a lower data point on the graph, over “higher” rejects – it has indeed been true that this is a hooked applicant. In the cases I have investigated those have never been “just” legacies. In one case it was legacy + big donor; in all the other cases it was athletic recruit and/or URM.</p>

<p>And as to the comment about mental illness & behavior issues, I have never known one such student at our school (and there have been several with “issues”) whose academic performance was not affected by an untreated or unaddressed situation, ever. They have never been at the top of any graph.</p>

<p>There are still many students & many parents who just do not see how important the <em>focus</em> and the <em>fit</em> are, on the application: how that is articulated, how that is backed up by the student’s record, how it is reflected even in the essay, etc. I don’t care how these three are often grouped together: Harvard is not Yale is not Princeton. It is possible to “belong” at all 3 of them, but less frequent that the application to each makes that clear. Not to mention Columbia, Penn, et al.</p>

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<p>…also, with regard to Possible Reason #2, although, yes, it’s theoretically possible, that also has never happened, because any high-scorer at our school would never take non-challenging courses, & never has. There’s an expectation on the part of the administration that you take at least to your level of capability. The students similarly expect that. You would be seen as quite the oddball if you were taking classes beneath your potential.</p>

<p>Also, somewhat paradoxically I suppose, the students taking non-Honors courses do not have high GPA’s. All of the high-GPA students are taking only rigorous courseloads & levels. Perhaps this is true also at similar demanding privates.</p>

<p>So while the reason #2 is possible, at our school it would be highly improbable. (And to date has not been true.)</p>

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<p>At our HS, many of the students who were accepted to HYPSM etc. were waitlisted and subsequently rejected at excellent schools like Boston College, Emory, Georgetown, Lehigh etc. And that is the point I was trying to make …</p>

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<p>Since our version of Naviance uses weighted scores, you have to be getting top grades in weighted courses to end up at the top of the chart. I have no idea what the reasons are for those few rejections at the top end, but I do know a number of kids in our school who only got into one of the HYPSM group.</p>

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<p>Our Naviance data uses unweighted GPAs. If they used weighted, it’d be a lot more useful to us, since that reflects strength of schedule, which is a real strong point for DS1. Of course, our HS also includes in GPA classes that my son took when he was 10 years old!</p>