As the year comes to a close, juniors become closer and more aware of the college application process. For a refresher, the college counselors talked with juniors about the importance of Naviance, and the ways to use it.

“We met with all of our juniors to remind them of the college and career research and planning tools available to them on Naviance, as well as to explain their next steps in the college admissions process, including how to request transcripts through Naviance,” college and career counselor Addison Snyder said. “We also spent the last 10-15 minutes introducing the Senior Project, which all students will complete during their Senior year as part of the Lovejoy graduation requirements.”

With the application processes beginning in the fall for current juniors, now was the time to get information out to students.

“We like to meet with our juniors about these topics in late spring because they are about a month out from becoming seniors and moving forward with their own college applications,” Snyder said. “It also serves as an ideal transition to talk about the pieces of their college applications that they can begin preparing during the summer.”

While students get limited exposure to Naviance as an underclassmen, the full use of the program isn’t helpful until the end of junior year.

“I think getting Naviance explained to all of us again really helped,” junior Deirdre Crowley said. “In ninth and tenth grade we learn about it, but it’s not really pertinent to us until now.”

Naviance has programs such as college match and college compare to allow students a better idea of what type a student a certain college accepts or doesn’t accept.

“I think Naviance is really helpful because it can give you lists of colleges that would be good for you to apply to,” junior Caroline Hunt said. “It also helped me narrow down what I want my career to be, and without the program I think it would’ve been a lot more difficult.”

The Naviance application provides all students with college research tools as well as career inventories to help students with college and career interests.

“One of our main goals in the college and career counseling office is to help students identify a career cluster and in turn college major they are passionate about so they can begin looking for colleges that will prepare them best to enter that career field,” Snyder said. “There is also a scholarship search engine as well as a scholarship list that is updated for Seniors throughout the school year. There is also a resume builder that allows them to keep track of the activities and volunteer work they engage in throughout their high school experience. The resume builder is very helpful because it can be updated regularly by the student so that when they are a Senior, all of their extracurricular activities will be written down in one place, and the program simplifies many things for the students.”