As Staples students engage in the rigorous process of applying to college, most have prob ably referred to Naviance, a college tracking system that allows students to compare themselves to other admitted students who went to Staples.
Though Naviance has been able to help students investigate colleges for years, a new, more advanced tracking system, called Student Tracker, will most likely supplement Naviance in the future.
Student Tracker, which was created by National Clearing House, is different from Naviance in that it provides information on Staples students after the admittance process. Among many things, this system collects data from colleges and universities around the United States on retention rates, graduate programs, community colleges, and graduation plans. It costs $425.
“It will allow guidance counselors to see what happens to our students after they graduate from Staples, which Naviance can’t do,” says director of guidance Elaine Schwartz. Schwartz came across this revolutionary tracking system at a directors’ of guidance
meeting. After hearing about it from another school within Staples’ DRG (a group of nearby schools that are very similar to Staples), she immediately investigated it and introduced it to John Dodig. He, as well as counselors Schwartz, Wiliiam Plunkett, Micah Lawrence, and PJ Washenko, showed great interest in the program and decided to look into it.
Like many other schools in the area, Staples hasn’t bought the program, but it is highly likely that administrators will be purchasing it for the 2011-2012 school year.
“It looks like we’re getting it unless we find some problem with it. We can’t say we have it yet, though, because we haven’t bought it. We want to make sure we know how to use it before we incorporate into the school system,” said Schwartz. As of the sentiments of the guidance counselors, Washenko sees it as a positive upgrade to Staples’ college sorting process. He thinks that it will give students a plethora of useful information, and only continue to ease the process.
“I don’t see how it could be a negative at all. We use Naviance now, which is one step, where students can look into college. This is the next step,” Washenko said.
Specifically, he sees it as potentially helping students see whether colleges are too hard or easy for them. He also believes Student Tracker will allay the worries of students who don’t get into their first choice schools, since it provides the sort of data that would show them that it is possible to transfer. Schwartz expressed a more personal reason for her desire to purchase the program.
“Once students leave here, except if they keep in touch with us, we don’t always knows what happens in their future. We really care about them so much, it will be wonderful for us to actually see what happens to them after they leave this school,” she said.
Students are generally intrigued by the prospect of this new program. Though few know much about the details of this new system, most believe that some of
the new features it offers could be helpful. “It sounds interesting,” Jeremy Rubel ’11 stated.
Still, some concerns arise. A few students, upon hearing that it includes information about graduate programs, think that this information would not be helpful when choosing a college.
“It sounds like it could be overcomplicating the process,” Rubel said.
Kristen Weiler extended on this idea, saying, “I think that seeing the retention rate [with this new program] would be helpful. I’m mostly just concerned with getting in, though. Naviance tells me the information I need to know.”
Schwartz stated that, ideally, the guidance department could complete the busy work of entering the names and information of every student during the summer. This would allow the guidance department to introduce it to the school at the beginning of next year.
“We are really excited about it,” Schwartz said.
