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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]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.

[/quote]

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, [b]but I'm unsure how to use it best to generate ideas[/b]  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.[/quote]

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.

[/quote]
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.)[/quote]

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