Naviance Family Connection - Cardinal Gibbons High School

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.
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
Powerschool link. Click on it. You should be automatically signed into your student Family Connection
account.
Parent Username: ______________________
Parent Password: _______________________
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).
Researching Colleges
From the Home Page, click on the “College” Tab at the top
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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
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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.
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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.
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When you select “show matches”, you will be able to sort your college matches by specific criteria:
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.
This is the same list sorted by enrollment size and then by average ACT total (composite) score
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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
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“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.
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College Details on Naviance
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.
From the
SuperMatch
Page, click on
“School Info”
to access this
information
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From most pages, you
can just click the name of
the school in blue.
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From Maps, click
on the name of
the school, and
then click “learn
more” from the
box that appears
in the map.
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:
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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.
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You can
click on
any
major to
see a list
of other
schools
that offer
that
major
too!
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.
Creating a “colleges I’m thinking about” list
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”:
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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.
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Navigating your “colleges I’m thinking about” list
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.
If you want to
email the school,
click here.
Current deadlines,
these are updated
yearly. Always
check each college’s
website for final
deadlines.
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.
Visit the
school’s
website by
clicking
here.
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How Competitive Are You?
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.
Select “college
picker” to be able to
enter schools you
want to compare.
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
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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.)
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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):
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Select “Display Graph” to see the scattergram for that school:
You are represented, based on the
current stats we have on file, on the
graph by a red circle.
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.
Other Naviance Tools
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.
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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
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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!