“Out with the old, in with the new” seems to be the motto of the New Year, even when it comes to college preparation. Wilcox has recently switched from Kuder Navigator to Naviance, a newer, more expensive college program that allows students to access career options, colleges, and much more. Stated Wilcox counselor Mrs. Mikhailova, “It’s comprehensive, user friendly and offers tons of valuable resources in one place.” This program will change the way Wilcox students prepare and apply for college.

At first glance, the program seems a bit barren and unexciting. However, after exploring its depths and discovering its helpful services, students will realize its potential. Not only does the program offer in-depth college and career searches, it also allows students to compile a list of possible colleges and track their deadlines. Students can browse through universities and flag their favorites with SuperMatch. This feature allows students to select their college preferences, including size, price, location, majors, and sports. They can also input GPA and SAT or ACT scores to estimate their chances of being accepted, and compare their top schools side by side.

Commented Wilcox Junior Diego Smith, “I like the feature that matches you to colleges based on your interests and disinterests. I also liked the variety of options to filter the results. It’s easy to access and helpful to use.” Added Junior Emma Kreider, “I thought the results were fairly accurate compared to College Board’s college search, and I liked that you could tour the college virtually and compare multiple colleges side by side. I thought the search gave me more viable options than a College Board search, and although there were fewer options that the program showed, it was less overwhelming.” There is also a scholarship search feature, and links to summer enrichment programs.

The career search is another benefit to the program. It starts with basic questionnaires, asking which statement applies to your personality or personal views the best. After these assessments have been completed, the program compiles a list of related careers. This list varies from person to person because the answers to the questionnaire can lead students on very different paths, maybe even discovering a possibility they had not previously been aware of.

One key feature of the new program is the mobile app. Available at the Apple App Store, it allows students to keep track of their college preparation tasks with a calendar and timeline. The app also sends reminders to alert users of upcoming deadlines, new messages from college counselors, and more. This app will become more useful to students as information is uploaded later.

On a more personal level, the program allows students to set goals and view their transcript and portfolio on the About Me page. In addition, teachers can send letters of recommendation through the program, which will also show up on this page.

Compared to Kuder Navigator, Naviance has numerous advantages. One of the most exciting new features is called Scattergrams. This program assigns each graduated Wilcox student to a dot on a large graph that shows their GPA, ACT and SAT scores, and where they were accepted into college. The feature allows current high school students to estimate their chances of being accepted into certain universities by comparing their results to graduated classes. And, of course, the names of the graduated students remain anonymous.

The class of 2017 is the first class to switch from Kuder Navigator to Naviance, so the class of 2018 will be the first class to enjoy this feature. Many more features will become available as more information is compiled in the coming years as well. Mrs. Mikhailova added, “In the near future we are hoping to use Naviance for Seniors for an electronic document submission to colleges. These documents might include Secondary School Reports (SSR), Letters of Recommendation and transcripts, which in the present are requested and sent through a Parchment website. Seniors would need to make sure that the colleges they are applying to are listed in Naviance and that their list is updated to reflect their most current selection of schools.”

Naviance has been implemented by more than 9,000 schools nationwide, and the numbers are on the rise. The students and staff at Wilcox are excited to use such a valuable, informative program for all of their college and career needs in the coming years. Added Junior Elilta Solomon, “Naviance has everything on one website to help me figure out my future, and I am excited to start using it!”