Paly Family Connection
Naviance is a web-based service designed especially for planning and exploring your college options. Family Connection is a comprehensive website that students and parents can use to help in making decisions about courses, colleges, and careers. Since Family Connection is linked with Counselor’s Office, a service that Paly college and career advisors will use to track and analyze data about college and career plans, it provides up-to-date information that is specific to our school. Family Connection also lets us share information with parents and students about up-coming meetings, news, and events, as well as other web resources for college and career information.
In second semester, before Juniors can schedule individual appointments with college and career advisors after attending C&CC orientation with their US History classes at the beginning of second semester, they will need to login to Family Connection and complete a Naviance web-based survey, Post High School Planning Survey. During first semester, if you add colleges to your “Prospective List”, you’ll receive reminders when representatives from those colleges visit campus. Students will learn more in the Advisory session in February; we also hope you explore and familiarize yourself with some of the features presented in the tables below.
Activate Your Account
Your personalized registration code has been distributed to students during Advisory and mailed to parents in September. If users have misplaced login information, please contact Ms. Cernobori, College Advisor. Use the personalized registration code to login to Naviance and set up your account as a new user. Remember to enter your email address and change your password. When you login with your password you will be able to see all the online features as well as your personal account settings and files (including final and in-progress surveys).
Selected Features to Explore
Although you can either login using your Naviance/Paly Family Connection account password or click the Enter as Guest button, in order to access certain features you must use your password. When you visit as Guest, fewer features will be available.
| Feature | Description | How to Access |
|---|---|---|
| College Search | • Set search criteria to yield a list of colleges to explore. Save your search to access/modify later. • Click on the various tabs of the college profile (general, admissions, financial aid, majors and degrees, and student life) to learn more information. • Add colleges you’re interested in to your My Colleges list for future reference. |
From the About College section in the left navigation panel. |
| Document Library | • CSU and UC (how to calculate GPA, minimum requirements, and special evaluation processes) • Paly specific information (Paly school profile, CSU/UC-approved Paly courses) • Other college-related information (Students’ Rights and Responsibilities in the College Admissions Process, College Tracking chart |
From the From Your School section in the left navigation panel |
| Résumé | • Record your high school activities, awards, volunteer experience, etc. • Rearrange your information into multiple printable versions of a résumé that you can use to present to potential employers or colleges in the future. |
From My Résumé in the About Me section in the left navigation panel |
| Explore Interests | A career interest survey about interest in types of work activities. Use the results to explore suggested occupations; examine the education, training, and skills required [and where to obtain them], as well as wages typical for these occupations. | From the About Careers section in the left navigation panel |
| Do What You Are | A personal interests and personality survey. Use the results to explore suggested college majors and careers based on your preferences and strengths. | From My Personality Type in the About Me section in the left navigation panel |
| College Search Tools | Other search tools to complement Naviance; some are specialized. | From the From Your School section in the left navigation panel |
| Maps | Groups of types of colleges by location. Click on a college to view its profile. | From the About College section in the left navigation panel |
College Application Statistics
College application statistics for the high school senior classes of 2006 and later are now available on Naviance. To protect student privacy, if fewer than 4 students applied to a college, the statistics are not available.
| Feature | Description | How to Access |
|---|---|---|
| Acceptance History | Historical overview of acceptance history, by college. Tables • How You Compare - Student’s test scores and GPA along side of accepted students’ average test scores and GPA. • Application History Hyperlinks • School Stats • Graph |
From Acceptance History in the About College section in the left navigation panel. |
| Application History | Summary of Paly application results (admit, deny, enroll), by year. Note that prior to 2008, data represents both Paly and Gunn applicants. | From College Lookup in the About College section in the left navigation panel. After looking up and selecting a college, the Application Results table appears in the middle of the page. |
| School Statistics | • Historical summary of Paly application outcomes (number admitted, denied, etc.) by application decision plan (i.e. regular and early decision) by college. Note that prior to 2008, data represents both Paly and Gunn applicants. • Historical average GPA and SAT scores for admitted applicants, by college. |
From College Lookup in the About College section in the left navigation panel. After looking up and selecting a college, click on School Stats hyperlink located beneath the college’s contact information. Two tables are displayed: • Outcomes • GPA and Test Scores |
| Graph | Historical application results (admit, deny, waitlist) are graphed as a scattergram; applicant average GPA appears on the y-axis and applicant average SAT scores on the x-axis. For an applicant to be represented on a scattergram for a given college, three things must be present: 1. an application result (accepted or denied) 2. a GPA 3. a test score for the type of test for which you are running the scattergram Note about calculation of averages: If, for example, a test score is not present for the SAT (2400 scale) for some students, those students' dots/crosses are not figured into the averages on the scattergram. This means that those students will not show up on the scattergram for the 2400 scale--which means that their Test Scores and GPAs will not figure into the Accepted Average displayed on the scattergram. |
From College Lookup in the About College section in the left navigation panel. After looking up and selecting a college, click on Graph hyperlink located beneath the college’s contact information. - OR - From Scattergrams in the About College section in the left navigation panel. |
| College Compare | Compare your GPA and test scores to the average GPA and test scores of PAUSD admitted students for a particular college (or multiple colleges). School averages are displayed in green when your numbers are higher and in red when your numbers are lower than those of past admitted students. |
From College Compare in the About College section in the left navigation panel. |