Navigating Naviance
NEIRAD enilno edition
Juniors: looking for a quick and easy way to select the college that’s right for you? Just try Naviance, the Web based college and career search engine.
Naviance has a large database of colleges and universities all over the country with links to its Web sites. In addition, there are statistics that show how many people applied to certain schools and how many were accepted or rejected. There are even statistics on how many people from DHS have applied and been accepted to each school in the past.
“It was really useful in the college process. It shows average SAT scores and GPAs of students who were accepted at the colleges and universities,” senior Chris Martin said.
Some students, however, felt that was not enough. “It only shows people’s SAT scores and GPA. You can’t see what extracurricular activities the people did,” senior Allie Townsend said.
Naviance is open to all students here at DHS. The bulk of the users, however, are juniors and seniors.
One of the main attractions of Naviance is that it’s available everywhere. Any student with a Naviance account can log in on any computer with an Internet connection. This is designed so that students can access Naviance from home or even when they’re on vacation, times when students have more time to look at college and career choices.
To encourage students to take advantage of the many features of Naviance, there will be instructive classes for juniors, called “Navigating Naviance,” Tuesday, December 16, and Tuesday, December 23 in room G-214.
The room will be open all day to accommodate any juniors who wish to participate. The purpose of these classes is to inform students about how to use Naviance. “The programs are so deep, but [Naviance] is not complicated, it’s not tricky,” guidance counselor Rudy Spannaus said. “We want to provide an opportunity for students to familiarize themselves with its many features.”
There will be another class for sophomores in the spring.
Naviance is designed to springboard into the junior college conferences in February, Mrs. Spannaus added. By the time February rolls around, many juniors will have been able to acquaint themselves with colleges and possibly even careers they are interested in, which will help as students discuss potential choices with their guidance counselors.
With its many varied features, Naviance will get kids on their way towards choosing the college that’s right for them.