Parents of the HS Class of 2025 (Part 1)

Naviance is an application management system. Scoir is the other big one. Not every school gives parents access.

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Thanks! What’s the added benefit of Naviance? You can manage applications on common app as well and request recommendations etc directly from common app… and if you have to use common app to submit applications anyways (at least for most colleges), why use Naviance? Again, forgive my ignorance but Naviance seems like extra work.

Our school uses Scoir, but I believe it’s similar. The college counselor uses it to send LORs, transcripts, etc to the colleges. There are tools to research collages, and the CC can make suggestions. Once the student has sent a common app in they mark the school as “applied” and the school knows to submit paperwork.

From our end, the most useful (or interesting) tool is the scattergram, which plots historical application data for the school with GPA vs Test Scores and how that “dot” faired on admissions for each college.

Thanks, @TonyGrace. So it’s fair to say that Naviance primarily benefits schools and counselors by helping them manage the entire application process more efficiently across many students. While there are some useful features for students—like personalized college data and career planning—the primary value is for schools to track student progress, manage documents, and streamline communication. I do like the visual clarity that scattergram provides, as you mentioned. I would like that feature for sure. That can help us in making more informed decisions about safety, match, and reach schools.

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Yes. This is its primary function.

Correct. It’s useful to see things like “no one from our school gets into x school without c test score” or “only ED kids get in despite RD kids having better stats” or even “x school is more holistic (toward our school) than y school”.

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Thanks, @TonyGrace. I guess it makes it easier for parents to be involved in the decision-making process :slight_smile: It can prevent the guesswork when I can see a clear comparison of my kids academic profile with past applicants…

Two more admits…Ole Miss and Alabama. There is so little fanfare with the emails S25 is getting. :joy:

But glad he has three schools under his belt. Four more decisions left to go! Trying to talk him into applying to Honors at UTK and Indiana but he doesn’t seem interested.

Hope everyone has a good weekend!

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By so little fanfare do you mean that he is less interested in those schools or that the admission emails are boring? Add Iowa to the list…you get a fun personalized video with the admission.

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It was the email. Just a plain text email that said: Hotty Toddy S25! You are admitted to Ole Miss! At least Alabama’s was a little flashier, but not by much.

But no biggie. Just glad he has some options!

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Our child thought they were on the ball and lined up the recommendations in the Spring. One teacher said she was only doing our child’s and then we found out why, the day after school ended, she retired with no notice. She emailed the letter to the school, but it seems like it is in limbo somewhere and the other recommender is out on parental leave and the school won’t move on their applications until the teacher uploads the recommendation. Child even received an email from one of the colleges asking why they haven’t gotten anything from the school. Beyond frustrated.

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Oh boy. I just hope that D25’s teacher uploads the rec this coming week. It is almost October already!

Can you change the recommenders? Your child can explain the situation to the school. I am sure this happens a lot so the school would understand.

A little late to the party, but D25 was called out of class on Friday and notified that she was a NM Commended Scholar. That was a nice touch to her day.

Earlier in the day she lead the Pledge of Allegiance at a Naturalization Ceremony and had quite a few technical audio glitches which made an otherwise excellent experience a bit of a downer (for both her and the new citizens).

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Their current teacher in the same subject is reaching out to them. Fingers crossed. I think our school just does things later than others. The application night for parents is next week.

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This is an awesome thing to do, sorry about the glitches. My naturalization ceremony was an extremely emotional experience for me and I was so glad at all the effort they put into it (for logistical reasons my husband and D19 had theirs during Covid and it was basically just a socially distanced oath - very different)

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My son got an index score of 215 on the PSAT. This isn’t high enough for NMSF in our state but it does meet the threshold for Commended. His school has not said anything to him, so nothing is official. He wants to start turning in some of his applications. Do you think he can put this in the awards section or does he need to hear from the school first? I know it’s not that big of a deal and his test scores are much better than his PSAT but he still wants to fill in that section.

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You could call either the school or the NM corp to verify. My assumption is that he is Commended, but you probably would want to make sure. My guess is that the notification is sitting on a desk in a school admin office.

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My son also had an index of 215 which did not qualify for NMSF in our state, but did get the commendation letter from his school on Friday. I had been silently wishing he had gotten some of his safety apps in, and now I’m relieved he is a procrastinator so he can put that into the awards section!

I would call the school on Monday just to verify, but that score should be good nationwide.

Edited to add - some schools have been known to withhold telling students so that nobody feels left out (Thomas Jefferson magnet in VA got into hot water for this recently). You should definitely be proactive and not wait for your school to notify your son.

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The schools got notified just last week of commended. For some reason they don’t notify the schools the same time as NMSF. I would definitely have him put it on his applications. He is well about the cut off of 208.

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