College search process goes online New program should reduce paperwork at Salem High

New Hampshire

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Allegra Boverman
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April 17, 2008

By Rebecca Correa

SALEM — The amount of paperwork stored in filing cabinets in the high school guidance office will begin to dwindle next fall.

That's because juniors are being urged by their guidance counselors to manage the majority of their college search and application process online.

Last month, all 582 juniors received training on how to use an online college tracking system called Naviance during small group meetings. A few weeks later, more than 250 parents showed up to learn the same thing at a college information night at the school.

Gloria Barretto, 17, said both she and her mother have since logged on to Naviance at home.

Since the beginning of this year, she has used Web sites such as Princeton Review or College Board to help search for a college that would be good for her.

She said Naviance is not only easier to use, but it's more informative. Barretto wants to go to school for communications in a major city.

"Ideally, I want to go to Los Angeles, but my mom won't let me," she said. "This (Naviance) showed me new schools I hadn't even thought of."

She said she'd never heard of Pace University in New York City until she logged on to the management program, but now she'll spend part of her April vacation visiting the campus.

When a student logs on to Naviance with a user name and password supplied by their guidance counselor, their GPA and SAT scores are automatically displayed. Based on those academic achievements, the program graphs what their odds are of getting into the school.

The program also will record historical data, and show how many Salem High graduates have been accepted or rejected at each particular school in the past two years, according to guidance counselor Heather Machanoff.

"I think when students know what happened close to home, instead of a general sense of what schools are looking for, it's more informative for them," she said.

And it's bound to save the school district money.

Instead of students handing their counselors a piece of paper that requests that their transcript be sent to a certain school, they can e-mail the note to their counselor.

"Eventually, it will probably reduce the postage cost, but it will definitely reduce the amount of papers we print," Machanoff said. "Instead of coming out to find the (paper) file and see if something is missing or sending them a pass to get out of class and having them walk down here, we can send an e-mail reminder."

This is the first semester the school has used or subscribed to Naviance, which costs about $900 a year. Last year, about 30 students were in a pilot program called Connect, but staff members said they found Naviance to be more effective.

Guidance director Heidi Greenlaw said the department will make laptops accessible in the office during the next few weeks so students can access Naviance during any break they have during the day. And after April vacation, the department will do a marketing campaign, handing out Naviance T-shirts and pencils in the hopes of creating a buzz about the program.

"If nothing else, (students) will ask what is that," she said. "We want more students to use it because so far it's been wonderful."

Eventually, she said, sophomores will be trained to use the program, but during the 2008-2009 school year only juniors and seniors will have access to the program.