Naviance is a vital tool introduced to every VHHS freshman. The website shows a multitude of information regarding colleges of interest, career possibilities, and even personality flaws; on Naviance, it’s all about you. But is it really all it’s cut out to be?

Naviance, as described by Daria Potarskaya (12) is “a website that helps you keep track of everything college related. You are able to look up different schools and see if you’re compatible with them. You can also fill out your resume, take personality and career quizzes, get teacher recommendations, and submit your high school transcript through Naviance.”

Transition teachers introduce their students to the website early in their high school careers so they can get familiar with the idea of applying to colleges.

From 32 responses from an upperclassmen survey, it’s evident that the site is used often; nearly 66% use Naviance at least once a month. But how does everyone feel about his/her time spent online?

“Naviance gives a realistic feedback on the likelihood of getting into specific universities of interest,” Jolie Boulos (12) said, but she felt we would benefit from having a “top 25 list of the most common universities students at VHHS attend”. “I feel like the people in our school share a similar outlook on how we view academics and what we look for in a school,” Boulos explained. “If you see other schools that your classmates have looked at, it might give you a starting point to look into.”

Boulos continued with this feature would, “open people’s eyes.” “If they want to go to a school to meet new people and don’t want to see a lot of people that they already know, they just want to experience new relationships then I think that’d be helpful and give them a good idea of, ‘Oh, these are schools that a lot of people go to, maybe I want to explore something different.’ Or maybe, ‘because a lot of people go to these schools, then I should look into them to.’ I think it’d give resource for students to use, or a starting point. ”

One complaint Boulos has about Naviance is the “cut-and-dry” resume builder. She describes the lack of freedom in the layout while using it. “I had to create a resume for one of the colleges I’m applying to, and I actually went into a different document and created a whole new resume,” Boulos said. “I had more freedom.”

Although Naviance set a great starting point for her resume, she felt their prompts were very constricting and lacked a level of professionalism. “I felt like you couldn’t expand on everything as much as you wanted. It wasn’t user-friendly,” Boulos said.

Isabella Kosoglaz (12) also feels that some of the functionalities of the site are flawed. “I feel it doesn’t really show much about how social life is. If it had responses based on prior students who are already going there. If it kept up with alumni, I feel like it would be really helpful for people who are applying.”

50% of students surveyed have said that they benefit from the “about me” and “careers” portion of Naviance. However, Kosoglaz is in the half that has not. “It doesn’t really say anything about you,” she said. “I want to go into a field that wasn’t mentioned on there at all. It was all very general and broad; they didn’t have specific majors.”

Regardless of her past frustrations, Kosoglaz sees great potential for Naviance. “If everyone were to create a nameless profile on Naviance and then you click on the profile to see GPA, ACT, SAT, classes, gender, race, then that would be a lot better. I know a couple other people who like the scattergrams, but they don’t like or understand how much variation there is.”

Kosoglaz feels that this strange variation is from income, race, and little things that we don’t know. All questions that could be answered with making anonymous profiles.

Many students see Naviance as a fantastic starting point when it comes to searching for a college, learning a bit more about themselves, and many other things; however, it’s far from perfect. Most students surveyed said that they use the website multiple times a month, so there’s no excuse for the time spent to not be as productive as possible.

Iuliia Boyarskiy