What is Naviance?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's a useless piece of crap

data from even 3 years ago is wildly out of date. So much has changed in college admissions. See Bowdoin for example. Now sub 10% admission rate this year.

+1

Also not very useful if you kid is applying to a college where no one from the high school has applied before, or very few have applied in the past. It's more useful for large in-state schools that will be attractive to lots of kids at that high school-- at least that's what we found.

OP, take care not to get overly invested in things like Naviance and other guides that purport to give you magic formulas for where your kid may or may not get in. Those formula focus on what can be quantified (GPA, SAT/ACT, etc.) but can't account for things like "this student plays oboe and we need an oboe in the orchestra even though this student won't be a music major...." Parents here on DCUM pooh-pooh those kinds of things but for real, there are MANY factors beyond numbers that do affect whether a student gets a second look.

Spend time ensuring your DC has good writing skills and can nail a good essay that's limited to 300 to 500 words, and does extracurriculars that actually interest him or her and about which your DC can express real dedication.

DCUM also will tell you that essays mean nothing but our experience was absolutely that essays are taken seriously, at least by the colleges where our DC applied. I think essays plus some solid ECs helped a lot. But not ECs for the sake of "looking good on a resume" -- colleges see through those.