Naviance Family Connection Junior Year

What is it?

Naviance Family Connection is a web-based program that allows you and your parents to organize and manage

your college search process. It also allows for direct communication with your college counselor and the ability

for you to follow the process as it happens, which will hopefully help you be a little less stressed about if and

when information is submitted.

Once you are logged in, you can start to use this for your college search to create a prospective school list and

see how you compare to other Gibbons graduates (new statistics will be available each year in June).

From the Home Page, click on the “College” Tab at the top

To Access Naviance:

Students: Parents:

Log into your Gibbons Website Account Website: http://connection.naviance.com/gibbons

Find the link to Naviance on the right just under the Parent Username: ______________________

Powerschool link. Click on it. You should be auto-

matically signed into your student Family Connection Parent Password: _______________________

account.

Researching Colleges

2

In the middle you will find the “College Research” section, which provides you with many opportunities to

explore colleges

Here are some of the basic ways to access this information using these tabs:

College Lookup

If you know the name of a school you are researching, you can select “college lookup”

“College lookup” lets you find a school in Naviance by name. When you click on college lookup, you can

find a school by name, look up all schools in a state or in a country:

SuperMatch College Search

3

If you want to search for schools based on specific criteria (i.e. size, location, major, etc.), you can select

“SuperMatch college search” or “college search.”

“SuperMatch College search” lets you enter a variety of criteria and gives you a list of schools that are an

exact or close match for the criteria you entered:

Click on arrow for each category

options. Then make your

selections to have list adjust.

4

College Search

“College Search” is a less complex search tool than SuperMatch. It allows you to see all the criteria and

enter it in order, selecting “search matches” anytime to see which schools fit your criteria:

This is the list of various

sections from which you can

choose specific criteria. Each

one of these has its own

page.

Select criteria

that you feel is

the best fit for

you. Select

“next” at the

bottom of the

page to go to

the next criteria

page, or select

“show matches”

to see a list of

schools that

match your

entered criteria.

5

When you select “show matches”, you will be able to sort your college matches by specific criteria:

This is the same list sorted by enrollment size and then by average ACT total (composite) score

Once a list is

generated, based on

your criteria, you can

“pick” your choices

to be added to a list

of your colleges. You

can also sort by

using the drop down

boxes at the top

based on three

different criteria.

6

Other Search Tools

There are several other tools in the “College Research” section that you may find helpful as you research

schools:

College Match

After you have added schools to your list of colleges (see instructions below on Creating a “colleges I’m

thinking about” list), you can use the “college match” option. College match will analyze your information

in Naviance and the schools that you are thinking about applying to and will generate a list of other

schools that students tend to apply to that may be like those schools.

College Resources

7

“College resources” gives you access to links with more information about schools and programs.

This includes links to ROTC websites, College Board college search, Peterson’s guide to colleges,

financial aid websites and NCAA information and more. Use these to augment your search in

Naviance.

College Maps

“College maps” gives you access to ranking and other lists that help you identify schools of interest such

as the 100 Hidden Gems, 440 Great Colleges (Peterson’s), 40 Colleges that Change Lives, U.S. Catholic

Schools, etc. When you click on these lists, you see the location of all schools in the list on a map.

8

Please Note: Naviance information is ONLY a guide. For the most up-to-date information on

application deadlines, requirements, etc. you must refer to the college’s actual website.

At any time during your search, you can click on a college’s name for additional information about

that school in Naviance.

-------------------------------------------------------

-------------------------------------------------------

College Details on Naviance

From the

SuperMatch

Page, click on

“School Info”

to access this

information

From most pages, you

can just click the name of

the school in blue.

9

College Information Pages

When you click on any college name, as outlined above, you will have access to a plethora of general

information about a school. The information provided will help you better determine if each school is a

good fit for you. Please note: ALWAYS check the college’s website for the most up-to-date information.

Naviance is not updated daily.

If you clicked on Emory University from any search page, you will get a general page about Emory:

From Maps, click

on the name of

the school, and

then click “learn

more” from the

box that appears

in the map.

10

In addition to any pictures and videos available for a school, all college information pages provide

the ability to click on each of the gray-colored headings found below the address for each school.

1) General Information: supplies you with basic location, size, religious affiliation, and application

deadlines

2) Admissions: provides information about application requirements, total applications and

percentage of all who applied who were accepted, and an overall idea of average SAT/ACT and

GPA of applicants admitted.

3) Financial Aid: provides information on tuition costs, availability of financial aid, etc.

4) Majors and Degrees: lists all degrees offered at the college.

11

5) Student Life: provides list of organizations and Greek life offered at the school.

If after looking at this information, you continue to be interested in this school, you can learn more by visiting the

school’s website. Just click the “visit website” button above these informational tabs.

When you have determined that a school is among your possible schools based on the research you have done,

you can add the school to your “colleges I’m thinking about” list. From any college information page, you can

click “add to colleges I’m thinking about”:

You can

click on

any

major to

see a list

of other

schools

that offer

that

major

too!

Creating a “colleges I’m thinking about” list

12

The school will then be added to your “colleges I’m thinking about” list like this:

To view this list:

From most any page on

Naviance, you can click here

on the left-hand column.

From the home

page, click the

“colleges” tab. It

is located until

the “my colleges”

section.

13

Navigating your “colleges I’m thinking about” list

Delivery Type: Tells

you if the school takes

electronic documents

(just a computer

will show), is a

Common Application

school (computer with

a “CA” in it ), or

takes documents by

mail (shown by a

postage stamp ).

You can rank your

interest in each

school by using

this drop down

menu. This is

useful after you

have visited a

school.

Current deadlines,

these are updated

yearly. Always

check each college’s

website for final

deadlines.

If you want to

email the school,

click here.

Visit the

school’s

website by

clicking

here.

If you know the name of a

school you want to add, you

can click here to add quickly

See the

scattergram

explanation in

“Am I

Competitive?”

section for more

information

about the Graph.

14

Naviance provides a number of ways to see how competitive you are for a school based on the statistics

from past Cardinal Gibbons graduates. This information will allow you to determine if a school is more of

a target school, a safe school, or a reach school for you.

College Compare

College Compare allows you to select up to 10 schools to compare with each other and with your own GPA and

estimated or actual standardized test scores.

By selecting several schools, you can view a list that shows how competitive you are based on data from

Gibbons students (and since colleges will compare you to others from our school, this is an excellent way

How Competitive Are You?

Select “college

picker” to be able to

enter schools you

want to compare.

15

to see how you may fare in the admissions process.) If a school does not have data from Gibbons

students, it will state “insufficient data.”

Note: School stats in red shows that your current stats are lower than the average of those students

accepted in the past year; those in green show that you are higher than the average of those students.

A grid just like this comparing you and one specific school may appear at the top of any school specific

information page. The information is coded the same.

Scattergrams

Scattergrams provide a visiual graph with data from last year’s Gibbons graduates to show you who was

accepted, denied and waitlisted at various colleges. You are also represented on the graph to help you get an

idea of where you currently stand.

To view a scattergram select a school from the drop dowm menu (all schools to which Gibbons students have

applied in the last several years are listed, however, graphs will only display data from the previous school

year.)

16

Then select the test you want to look at (we recommend the SAT 1600 scale or the ACT, depending on which test you took

and did better on):

17

Select “Display Graph” to see the scattergram for that school:

Remember this is based on Gibbons students who graduated last year! This graph and the data in the

“college compare” section may seem different than stats published on a college’s website. Colleges

tend to compare students with students from their same school, so this is a more accurate guide to

your competitiveness for a school. If there is no data about a school provided because no Gibbons

students applied last year, then you need to look for the average GPA and SAT/ACT scores as well as

other admission requirements on that college’s website to help determine if the school is a good fit for

you or not.

You are represented, based on the

current stats we have on file, on the

graph by a red circle.

18

Enrichment Programs

Summer programs and other enrichment opportunities that may be of interest to students to

explore a career or take some higher level courses can be found here.

Scholarship Search

Some resources for financing college can be found in this section. Try also websites such as

www.schoolsoup.com, www.collegebaord.com, and www.fastweb.com. Or Google “College

Scholarships.” Be sure to check each college’s website for school specific scholarships as well.

Other Naviance Tools

19

Career Inventories and Searches

Take some surveys to help you learn about careers that are a good fit for you. Research lots of

careers and find out what schools have majors of interest to you.

Build a Resume

20

Besides having easy access to your lists and saved work, the “about me” tab also has a resume builder.

You will have to create a resume to turn into your counselor and teachers for recommendations and may

want to submit one to a college or coach. Use this builder to keep track of things you have done and add

things as you do them, so you won’t be rushed creating it next fall. Start Now!

If you have any questions about this process, feel free to stop by and see your counselor or you can select

“Home” from the upper tabs (far left) and then select “contact us” on the main page to send your

counselor a note. You can also email your counselor from your home email. Any of that will work!

You will use all this information next year when you will be moving colleges into your “colleges I’m

applying to” list. You will receive instructions on this at the start of senior year.

Happy College Hunting!