<p>Can someone help me get to San Antonio, Texas?</p>
<p>beck, I also agree with you but I think your argument is with your old school. From what I’ve seen the program has the capability to either require a minimum number OR not provide data for privacy reasons when there aren’t a minimum number of people. I’ve seen both.</p>
<p>That makes more sense. My high school doing something stupid like that doesn’t really surprise me, either.</p>
<p>I think the program is fascinating to look at and is interesting in a similar way that the online US News Report is when you click the titles at the top of the columns to reshuffle the listings of the schools, but I really don’t think it offers all that much help in college applications. It may be good for matching the average student with the average college, but it doesn’t help realistically with the top places because the system doesn’t work like that.<br>
If you were just starting the search and you knew zilch it would be helpful to match a kid with a B average and 1200 SATs to a school in the right ball park but I honestly don’t think it’s worth the presumably large amount of money our school paid for the program. You can find the same information in the college guide books- I don’t think the figures for “our” school were significantly different.</p>
<p>One thing I got out of it from really digging into my son’s school’s naviance data was a clear indication of which schools like the applicants from that prep school. It was amazing to see the large percentages accepted to some excellent schools- even dipping a little lower in stats than one would expect. I’m not talking the Ivys here, but schools like Lafayette, Colgate and others. It is not a big school, but it has a superior program in two sports, and it was easy to pick out some of the athletes who went to places like Duke with pretty low stats. It also helped kids pick safeties- when no one with certain stats from the school was ever rejected by a certain college, you could be pretty sure you would get in. For the highly selective schools like the Ivys, it doesn’t give you a whole lot. I’m with Andi on that!</p>
<p>My daughter’s school uses Naviance for quite a few things - listing and registering for college rep visits, requesting and tracking transcripts, reseearching and tracking scholarships, completing student and parent brag sheets, etc. I believe I also read on the Naviance website that they have initiated a program to integrate teacher recs for the Common Application.</p>
<p>Son’s school does have this. Since the graduating class has only 40 students, it’s fairly easy to tell who is who. Perhaps because it is such a small school (and everyone already knows everyone’s business, I’m afraid), no one is complaining…at least, not yet.</p>
<p>If we had to wait for a sampling of 5 people per school, I’m afraid we might be waiting 5-8 years for the system to be functional at all. My son has found the information useful.</p>
<p>I agree with momofwildchild about viewing general trends - it is interesting/helpful in that regard. Now if the GC’s would fill in the picture by educating students and families about the “OTHER” factors that go into acceptances we might have something useful here. </p>
<p>cami it’s possible to roughly identify certain students even when the class has over 400 kids in it. My older s attended a small lac in the mid atlantic area that few kids from our NE hs apply to- there were only a few boxes on the scattergram. It doesn’t seem that too many people mind though- especially as the info isn’t posted until they’re already gone from the school.</p>
<p>Our public high school of about 400 per class uses NAVIANCE and the info is posted as soon as apps are submitted. If you know the kids, it’s possible to identify certain students as in andi’s school. Again, it’s helpful info and people don’t seem to mind.</p>
<p>I would agree with MomofWildChild to say that one of the most valuable aspects of the program is to see the relationships between your school and the colleges. Sometimes there are surprises there. We are in one of the top rated public school districts in the country, but it is still possible to see that for whatever reason, we have stronger relationships with some schools than others. There is a rumor at our HS that a kid reneged on an ED acceptance from a particular Ivy almost ten years ago, forever dooming candidates from our school (actually a small number have gotten in, but not nearly what you’d expect). Although the urban legend may or may not be true, it would be still be valuable information going in. I know a lot of people will say that none of this is relevant and that the kids should just apply to where they really want to be. Often, though, there are many good choices, and if you know one school gives a high acceptance rate to your HS, that can be an important factor.</p>
<p>our school does not use since they beleive in the mushroom theory of management: keep the kids in the dark and feed 'em…</p>
<p>NY Times Article about Naviance <a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/15/education/15weadmi.html?adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1137466939-/nKVTZylzcyG2mVlOhq+Lg[/url]”>http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/15/education/15weadmi.html?adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1137466939-/nKVTZylzcyG2mVlOhq+Lg</a>
(You may have to register to view the article, but registration is free.)
</p>
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Seems like a relatively good value, considering what it allows the schools to accomplish.
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<p>richs73cas, Thank you very much.</p>
<p>I was surprised to see how many high schools with this product can see where students have gone, etc. My son’s school uses Naviance but we don’t have that feature, it’s more of a personal tool to log colleges, acceptances, searches, etc. They do have a book in the guidance office that he breezed through, but nothing online. I guess as a previous poster mentioned, it’s what the school wants and pays for.</p>
<p>Debruns-</p>
<p>From what I’ve read, if a school purchases the Counselors Office program (less than $900/yr),the Family Collection part, that allows the students to access the data, is included at no charge. However, it takes a lot of time and energy to input the data from the current students into the program. My s’s school is in the process of entering data, but they haven’t promised that they’ll make this part of the program available to us. I can only hope. They mentioned another program called edline (<a href=“http://www.wdline.com%5B/url%5D”>www.wdline.com</a>) that allows for exchange of information between the school and the students. Has anyone used this porgram? How is it? What does it offer? Any info would be appreciated.</p>
<p>Has anyone else logged in as a guest from several high schools’ websites and seen the disparity in the admissions stats for the same set of colleges? Evidently, colleges are comparing students within the context of their own high school so having the data for your own school is essential. Unfortunately, our school tracks this data in a three-ring binder.</p>
<p>jym626,</p>
<p>I think you mean <a href=“http://www.edline.com%5B/url%5D”>www.edline.com</a> or <a href=“http://www.edline.net%5B/url%5D”>www.edline.net</a>. (The latter is the sign-on page.) My son’s school uses edline. The students get their grades here and some teachers (not too many) list homework assignments. There are links giving access to the general website, the textbook shop, the uniform store, etc. It’s generally a helpful site, but doesn’t really have anything I can see to help with the search for a college. That’s handled on Naviance.</p>