Strategies for narrowing colleges

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

On Naviance, under the Colleges tab, click on "college match". Then keep scrolling down the page until you get to a table titled "Colleges that have Accepted Students like you". Those are colleges that have accepted students from DD's high school with similar GPA/test scores. In the upper right you can click on "adjust matches" and then adjust the range of GPAs and test scores to either limit or broaden the colleges listed. Thats one place to start.

OP here: Excellent! I've never noticed this before. The one problem is that her test scores (neither PSAT nor SAT) don't show up in the "official things" and it doesn't seem possible for me to enter them manually. Is this something she should ask her counselor to do? (Sorry to treat this forum like my personal help desk, but you are all being very helpful! The old no good deed goes unpunished...)[/quote]

OP again: Thank you and nevermind about my follow-up question. I see now I can adjust this like you suggested (I was trying to do it on my phone which was wonky--should have made a real effort before asking again!).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I would start with a map

+1

Draw a circle of radius equal to 6 to 8 hours driving distance (250 to 400 miles range) the colleges/universities within that area are the ones of interest to you to do research on. There are some good suggestions from some commenters.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What major is she looking at currently?

Your school’s Naviance is a great resource.

Search schools’s Common data sets. This helps with categorizing between reaches, matches, and safeties.

For every possible college, I also look at the “outcomes” page which lists where graduates go after graduating.

My DC is going for sciences/engineering. So we’ve used asse.org for admitted class profiles for engineering programs.

Thank you!
Unsure as to her major--but probably along the lines of economics/political science rather than sciences or humanities. Maybe international relations or public policy? Business? Something with a reading/analytic focus but she's also good at math (just not that interested in focusing on it exclusively).

Naviance has been great for assessing the schools she finds, but I'm unsure how to use it best to generate ideas And so far we can find a Common Data Set for a school once she know she's interested, but I haven't found a Common Data Set Database to search. Am I missing something?

Cool idea to use a field-based site like asse.org -- that would be great if she were focused enough on a particular area.

On Naviance, under the Colleges tab, click on "college match". Then keep scrolling down the page until you get to a table titled "Colleges that have Accepted Students like you". Those are colleges that have accepted students from DD's high school with similar GPA/test scores. In the upper right you can click on "adjust matches" and then adjust the range of GPAs and test scores to either limit or broaden the colleges listed. Thats one place to start.

Not OP but thank you for this information. Do you know if the info provided in college match is only from those narrowed to students with similar stats as your dc? For example, if they are showing 50% acceptance rate for a particular school, is this 50% of kids accepted from all kids from your dc's HS that applied to this college or 50% acceptance rate from those with similar stats as your dc from his HS?

Click on the "adjust matches" link - that will show you the range of GPAs and/or test scores that those students in the table have. For example my NOVA HS senior currently has a 3.95 (weighted) GPA so when I click on "adjust matches" it shows me that the default search is for all students who have a GPA between 3.76 and 4.15. The default at our high school does not take into account test scores, but you should be able to add them to adjust the search.

A couple of things to keep in mind -
For our school the GPAs used are end of 12th grade GPAs so maybe adjust your child's junior year GPA higher to take into account AP classes to be taken senior year.
Some schools (ie: TJ) use the students' self-reported admission data to create the Naviance scattergrams, so they may not be completely accurate.
My other child's NOVA HS uses Naviance for sending all of its counselor/school information to the colleges so its data is more accurate.

[Anonymous]

We went out and visited them, a lot of them. Tech, UVA, JMU, W&M, CNU, Radford. But these were not controlled visits: some were during the summer with no students around and not even a tour, others were during a weekend with a home football game, others actually involved attending a class, one involved a sleepover in a dorm. The atmosphere of each visit probably affected her impression more than it should have. But she eventually figured out where she would fit best, and made her applications accordingly. The process was stressful, but it worked out well.

[Anonymous]

Op here: Thanks all for all the helpful advice!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Does she want a big school? small school?
urban, rural?
Figure these out, then look for schools that fit the bill within 6-8 hours

I think this is maybe why we're struggling--she is open to all and doesn't have a preference. Small rural schools seem cozy, urban schools seem interesting , big schools seem fun and have lots of opportunities. She's a really optimistic and agreeable person who doesn't like to commit. I thought we were able to cross urban schools off the list when on a family trip, she didn't really like Philadelphia ("nice to visit, wouldn't want to live here")-- but on a different trip she really loves Pittsburgh so maybe we should consider UPitt and Carnegie Mellon.

Y'all are helping me think though that we should start with a map, list the schools we have heard of within 6 hours and THEN use the Common Data Set to sort them academically and financially and if there's not enough in each category expand the range a little more. I want her to be the driver of this process, but I'm thinking she needs a more limited menu to choose from as she's sort of in a state of overwhelm by all the options, her limited knowledge about any of them, and that it's probably the most important decision she's had to make in her life yet. So she's just avoiding it all and saying "it's all good."

Pitt has rolling admissions and is a great safety. If she hops on the application as soon as it opens, she could be admitted in September. Really lightens senior year stress to have an admission in hand early.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What major is she looking at currently?

Your school’s Naviance is a great resource.

Search schools’s Common data sets. This helps with categorizing between reaches, matches, and safeties.

For every possible college, I also look at the “outcomes” page which lists where graduates go after graduating.

My DC is going for sciences/engineering. So we’ve used asse.org for admitted class profiles for engineering programs.

Thank you!
Unsure as to her major--but probably along the lines of economics/political science rather than sciences or humanities. Maybe international relations or public policy? Business? Something with a reading/analytic focus but she's also good at math (just not that interested in focusing on it exclusively).

Naviance has been great for assessing the schools she finds, but I'm unsure how to use it best to generate ideas And so far we can find a Common Data Set for a school once she know she's interested, but I haven't found a Common Data Set Database to search. Am I missing something?

Cool idea to use a field-based site like asse.org -- that would be great if she were focused enough on a particular area.

On Naviance, under the Colleges tab, click on "college match". Then keep scrolling down the page until you get to a table titled "Colleges that have Accepted Students like you". Those are colleges that have accepted students from DD's high school with similar GPA/test scores. In the upper right you can click on "adjust matches" and then adjust the range of GPAs and test scores to either limit or broaden the colleges listed. Thats one place to start.

I used Naviance a little differently. Keep in mind that part of its purpose is to advertise colleges to your child. I found that some colleges kept showing up in searches they shouldn't have.

I used the advanced search features and chose a state. Then I used the major search box to put in several common engineering majors (my DC was interested in STEM) and generated a school list. Then right-click, open in new tab, and I quickly looked at the summary page for the school. If it was possibly interesting, I checked the scattergram to make sure it was a fit, and added it to the possible list for DC to look at further. You have more control over the search features with the advanced search than you do when you let Naviance show you what it wants to show you. I found several schools in the region we were looking in that we didn't know about, and was able to quickly sift through a lot of schools to find ones with the desired major, size, location, and fit. (And yes, I did the initial sifting. I like data and can quickly sort through it without getting bogged down in details too early. I generated a list of about 15-20 schools for my DC to look more closely at, without overwhelming DC before they even got started.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Does she want a big school? small school?
urban, rural?
Figure these out, then look for schools that fit the bill within 6-8 hours

I think this is maybe why we're struggling--she is open to all and doesn't have a preference. Small rural schools seem cozy, urban schools seem interesting , big schools seem fun and have lots of opportunities. She's a really optimistic and agreeable person who doesn't like to commit. I thought we were able to cross urban schools off the list when on a family trip, she didn't really like Philadelphia ("nice to visit, wouldn't want to live here")-- but on a different trip she really loves Pittsburgh so maybe we should consider UPitt and Carnegie Mellon.

Y'all are helping me think though that we should start with a map, list the schools we have heard of within 6 hours and THEN use the Common Data Set to sort them academically and financially and if there's not enough in each category expand the range a little more. I want her to be the driver of this process, but I'm thinking she needs a more limited menu to choose from as she's sort of in a state of overwhelm by all the options, her limited knowledge about any of them, and that it's probably the most important decision she's had to make in her life yet. So she's just avoiding it all and saying "it's all good."

Pitt has rolling admissions and is a great safety. If she hops on the application as soon as it opens, she could be admitted in September. Really lightens senior year stress to have an admission in hand early.

Pitt is also an easy application to get. You self-report grades, no letters of recommendation and the option of 3 short answer questions, no essay required.

[Anonymous]

She likely will not get into UVA or W&M with those Stats, unfortunately that is just the facts. I would have he work on her SAT to get it to the upper 1400’s for those schools.

I would suggest she look at Clemson, I wish I had gotten my daughter to look there.

Good Luck!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:She likely will not get into UVA or W&M with those Stats, unfortunately that is just the facts. I would have he work on her SAT to get it to the upper 1400’s for those schools.

I would suggest she look at Clemson, I wish I had gotten my daughter to look there.

Good Luck!

She'd be likely to get into both schools from Yorktown with those stats (her GPA will be higher after junior/senior year).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:She likely will not get into UVA or W&M with those Stats, unfortunately that is just the facts. I would have he work on her SAT to get it to the upper 1400’s for those schools.

I would suggest she look at Clemson, I wish I had gotten my daughter to look there.

Good Luck!

She has only taken the SAT once with no prior preparation (other than taking the PSAT) and her current plan is to study and take it again in August. I know the schools superscore, so I'm pretty confident she will get at least a little higher score because she essentially "flipped" the scores she got on the PSAT--on the PSAT her reading/writing was 20 points higher than math and the reverse was true on the SAT. She has a strong upward trend in her grades and the current weighted grade includes a "B" she got by taking high school math courses in middle school--I don't know if the colleges recalculate around that. When I look at the Naviance scattergram she seems to be pretty well in line with acceptance data at W&M and slightly too low of GPA for UVA (though her SATs seem fine for them--they just seem to weight GPA a lot more when I look at the scattergram).

[Anonymous]

Don't rely solely on Naviance. It was a bloodbath this year. We thought several schools were locks only to be waitlisted.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Don't rely solely on Naviance. It was a bloodbath this year. We thought several schools were locks only to be waitlisted.

Good to know--thanks!