ESTABLISHING YOUR COLLEGE PREFERENCES

There are over 3,000 colleges in the United States. Students should consider the following criteria as they develop a list of prospective colleges.  Students can utilize Smart Futures,  Naviance and College Board College Search  to perform college searches based on a wide variety of criteria.  

Location, Size, Average Class Size, Tuition, Diversity, Retention, Graduation Rates , Courses/Majors, Accreditation, Housing, Athletics, Clubs, Religious Affiliation, Internship/Co-op Opportunity, Nature of Student Body and Social Life, Financial Assistance, Graduate and Professional  Schools , Advanced Placement Credit, Honors Program , Career Development Office 

Naviance 

All Pennridge High School students have a personal and secure Naviance Account.  Naviance offers a variety of tools designed to help students with this decision making process.  In each grade students will complete specific guided Naviance activities with their Guidance Counselor. However, students are strongly encouraged to also use the Naviance tools listed below independently. 

Super Match

When students are just beginning their college search process, it can be overwhelming and they may not know where to start. But with SuperMatch and other college search tools in Naviance, students can get matched from over 20 search criteria that will help them find colleges that are the right fit for them. Then, they can research the resulting schools and add them to their “Colleges I’m Thinking About” list.

College Search

This is an advanced search tool that enables students to create searches that focus on college criteria that is important to them, such as costs, campus surroundings, available majors, etc. Students can save college searches and add specific colleges to their “Colleges I’m thinking About” list.

 Colleges I’m Thinking About List

As students complete their college research and find schools of interest, they can add them to the "Colleges I’m Thinking About" list in Family Connection. After a student adds colleges to this list it enable Naviance to generate other suggestions in College Match.

Scattergrams 

Scattergrams are a visual representation of a school's applicant history and their admission results, plotted on a graph to share the intersection of GPA and standardized test scores. Scattergrams are used to analyze the history of applications to a college.