A helpful hand in choosing a college

Any parent who has ever helped a child try to work through the college application process would love what St. Gertrude High School is offering.

In a word, ease.

The school is participating in an online program that helps students, parents and school personnel track grades, test scores and likely college choices. And because the Family Connections feature of the Naviance program can be programmed with real-life data - at St. Gertrude, the guidance staff has input five years worth of student performance results - the information it creates hits close to home because it's from home.

"Students can instantly see how their scores compare to other students," said Dawn Glasco, a guidance assistant at the school.

She clicked a couple of times on her computer and brought up a scatter graph that showed the grade-point averages and SAT scores for St. Gertrude students who had applied to James Madison University in the past few years. A box over part of the graph separated those students who got in from those who didn't. Identities are kept confidential.

"It's reality," said Gwen Christodoulou, the school's guidance director. "It helps students determine in an objective way" if they're looking at the right schools.

Morgan Downing, a senior from Petersburg, said she used the software to help her narrow a list of dozens of possible colleges to the five to which she applied.

"I used it to see if [a college] was in my range or if it would be a 'reach' school," said the 17-year-old, who hopes to attend the University of Mary Washington to study English and Spanish.

The program, in which the school pays to participate, also allows the guidance staff to generate reports.

"It's a quick tool, compared to the old way we did things," Christodoulou said. "If someone on the board asks, 'How many of our graduates have gone to the University of Virginia in the last 10 years?' we can get that number."

In the past, she and Glasco said, coming up with such a number could have taken weeks.

It's not the end-all of the college application process, though.

"You still have to have that one-on-one," Christodoulou said. "That's why parents send their girls here."
Contact Zachary Reid at (804) 775-8179 or .