BC News

Online program eases stress of college process for students, parents and staff Release Date: Dec. 17, 2007

Want to go to a medium-sized, 4-year school, three hours or less from home, in a small town or a small city that offers study in architecture or a related field? A few mouse clicks in Naviance – a customized, Web-based program that helps students find the right college - and you’ll find the 11 schools that fit the bill.

BC High School seniors began using the Naviance program this year, and they are the first public school students in the Capital Region to do so.

“It has been really helpful,” said BC High School senior Mike Lois, who was recently accepted into Syracuse and is awaiting word from Boston University, University of Delaware, and Providence, among others.

Here’s how it works: All BC High School seniors were given a password to ACTIVATE a Naviance account at the start of this school year. From there, they can do college searches like the one referenced above; plot their GPA and College Board scores on a chart (known as a scattergram) that shows the scores of previous BC students and how their applications fared at particular schools; locate school contact and application information; view a map that shows where last year’s BC graduates currently attend school; and find out which colleges are scheduled to visit their high school.

“We gave out their passwords and saw students who were actively using the program an hour later,” said counselor Lisa Carr, who oversaw the implementation of Naviance. “It is really helping us manage what can be a very cumbersome process for students, counselors and parents.”

And, Carr points out that the value of Naviance is not just that it is a customized college search engine and comparison tool where nearly everything students need is in one place — It’s also a vehicle for communication between students, parents and counselors. Naviance allows students to send their counselors notes — “Did that recommendation arrive yet?” — and counselors submit information — “Application to University at Albany sent” — that can provide valuable peace of mind for parents and students during an often stressful time period.

More than 350 BC SENIOR students are currently using the service. High School juniors started using Naviance in late November and more than 277 are currently using the program. Current 9th and 10th graders expected to be able to log-in to the system early next school year.

Counseling Center Supervisor Deborah Zeh noted that the goal is to find a college that is the right match for students, a place that fits a variety of needs and interests.

“On the one hand, navigating the college process itself is an important task, and Naviance is a great tool to help with that,” she said. “And then, we also want to allow students to understand what is out there, the choices they have, and the importance of the decision they will make. It helps with that, too.”

Senior Christine Jordan agrees. As opposed to “flipping through a book” to narrow her college choices, she compared schools on Naviance and used the feature that allowed her to compare her scores to past BC students in the context of their success applying to various schools.

“It definitely helps a lot to see where kids have gone,” she said. “It made the process a lot less stressful.”

Attention parents: Want to explore Naviance?

Parents who would like to become familiar with Naviance can sign in as a guest. Visit http://connection.naviance.com/bethlehem and in the box on the bottom that requests a password for Guest Entrance, type, “Eagle.”

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