Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
I'm an independent high school counselor (with Ivy degrees) who can't stand Naviance. MOCO has long used the software as justification to cut college counselor positions. Wilson started using it after years of parents complaining bitterly that upperclassmen were getting less and less face time with (dramatically overworked) counselors. This increasingly popular software program has a grim way of reducing kids to graded, GPAs and scores, leading a great many to sell themselves short in applying to colleges. Families of the brightest college bound kids often don't understand that elite colleges value intangibles like intellectual curiosity, passion, motivation, drive, talent, strong executive function skills, creativity etc. over grades and rank in class. I encourage my clients to take the data Naviance spits out with a grain of salt (or a bag of salt in many cases). High schools commonly manipulate Naviance data on where kids apply and are accepted or rejected, because self reporting is the rule (colleges and private schools seldom use Naviance, and for good reason). I've seen kids Naviance effectively advised not to apply to Ivies get into multiple Ivies.
PS. Few Wilson kids get into Ivies, few who get into Ivies chose not to attend, and many false application narratives are in the mix.
What does this mean?
To me it means PP is a troll, who has a vested interest as an independent high school counselor, in making Wilson students look bad. Very unprofessional.
So the big list of MOCO acceptances that gets posted in Bethesda Magazine each year, is false or are they getting their data from somewhere else?
Independent counselor here, with children in DCPS. Wilson parents hire me, and some of their kids are terrific college applicants, elite college material without knowing it before working with me. Scant DCPS college counseling resources are the problem. MOCO families face different challenges, mainly terrible pressure to ensure that their kids test into super duper magnet programs for 4th, 6th and 9th grades. Suburban HS magnet programs commonly hire college counselors serving only their students.
Where Naviance data on applications goes, counselors often enter information about a student applying to a college without knowing that an applicant didn't complete the application (e.g. going through with an interview). In most cases, only the applicant learns the admissions result, and kids commonly don't follow up with counselors to report admissions outcomes, or don't report them accurately (to save face). Thus, it's impossible to verify the accuracy of Naviance data schools release, not just at Wilson. Right, a troll.