Is your college-bound high school student in a Naviance school? Initially, I didn’t even know how to answer that question. I had never even heard of Naviance before it was used by my high school (Class of 2022) son.
What Is Naviance?
Naviance is a secure, web-based college research tool. This college and career readiness platform allows families to analyze current college application trends in order to plan and organize college searches.
Since Naviance is used in many high school counseling offices, it is helpful for parents to know about it. According to the company, 40 percent of U.S. high school students use Naviance in partnership with school guidance departments.
Naviance Login
High schools that use this tool will provide Naviance student login information for students. As juniors (or earlier for some high schools), students will use it to begin the college search process. Senior year students continue to use Naviance as a college application tool.
Parents can also get an account that is linked to their student’s account. If you are a parent of a student (in grades 10 – 12) in a Naviance school, ask your child to register you/link you to his or her account.
For Parents
It is good for parents to have that connection in order to receive updates from counseling offices and to be able to contact their teen’s guidance counselor. Every family is different so I recommend having a conversation with your teen regarding what else they want you to do with their Naviance account.
Questions to consider asking your teen include the following:
- Are you comfortable with me viewing and monitoring their activity?
- Do you want me to suggest colleges and careers by adding them to your student list?
- Can I view your assessment results?
Tools
Naviance provides a variety of college planning and career assessment tools. Personality assessments, resume tools, detailed college profiles, a student/college matching function, scholarship information and Scattergrams are just some of the resources.
Scattergrams
The Scattergrams tool uses historical acceptance data to help students be aware of their acceptance odds for various colleges. The data is entered by the student’s high school guidance office to show how many students from their high school applied, were admitted, waitlisted, or denied at a particular college in the past few years.
Data points include grade point averages and standardized test (SAT and ACT) scores. This helps students narrow down their reach, target and safety/likelier schools on their college lists.
Scattergrams can be a useful measurement tool BUT it is not exact and should not definitely prevent students from applying to their desired colleges. Remember, many colleges are now test-optional and are taking a holistic approach to applicants.
SuperMatch
SuperMatch is another helpful college tool. Students select various criteria to determine if potential colleges would be a great fit. Location, cost, school size, religious affiliation, academic programs, athletics, admissions competitiveness and racial diversity are some of the criteria that can be placed into “Must Have” or “Nice to Have” categories.
Results can then be customized. Students are able to pin schools that they want to compare and “favorite” ones that they want to add to their “Colleges That I’m Thinking About” list.
More About Naviance
Naviance also interfaces with the Common Application which I will write about later this week. Once students have linked both accounts, Naviance can send transcripts, recommendation letters and other supporting documents to the Common App. (For instance, students will add their teacher requests for letters of recommendation only on Naviance.)
Students track their college admissions decisions through Naviance. When admission decisions are received from colleges, students will notify their counseling office through their accounts.
The results of every single college (not just the college that students decided to attend) need to be updated. In addition to college results, all scholarship information that students were offered for all schools (not just the college that they will be attending) needs to be included in their Naviance accounts.
To summarize, Naviance is a valuable tool that streamlines the college research process. If your teen’s high school offers Naviance, become familiar with the system and encourage your teen to fully use it. (I wish that they had something like this for every student!)
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