By Marcus McDermott|

As technology advances further, paper and postage become obsolete and give way to digital documents and email. This year at Morgan the typical write, fold, and mail style of sending transcripts and applications has been replaced with a program called Naviance that has revolutionized this process and our own guidance department at school. Guidance Counselor Joni Capobianco, who has worked at Morgan for three years, explained what Naviance is and why these changes are necessary.

In the words of Mrs. Capobianco , Naviance is “an electronic computer system that allows us to send documents to and from colleges.” Naviance is available for use all four years at Morgan, but is primarily for juniors and seniors. “It’s really just like an electronic portfolio,” Mrs. Capoabianco told me. Naviance captures snapshots of different things that you did throughout the years which you can later use as a giant portfolio for colleges or whatever else you might need it for. It includes your strengths, weaknesses, likes, dislikes, and more.”

The 2014-15 school year is the fourth year that Naviance has been utilized by the students and faculty at Morgan. After it was introduced, the school decided to switch to the all digital system for college applications during the 2014-15 school year. When asked about the decision to change, Mrs. Capobianco said, “We are actually probably in the last 30% of schools to get this, so virtually every single high school sends their stuff electronically now,” she also added that “It makes things a lot easier. It’s a secure way of sending things. It’s more effective and fast, but it also allows the student to be more engaged.” Students can look up their statistics, colleges, and more and can be completely involved during the process.

Another big factor of Naviance is that it also heavily depends of the willingness of students and faculty to use it to its full potential. When asked about his observations about Naviance, School Intern Mike Augusta said  “It seems as if it’s essential to the college application process.” Seniors also had varying opinions about its uses and applications in regards to their college process. Senior Paul Hotchkiss said “I’ve never been very good with computers so I thought Naviance just wasnt going to work for me. But once they sat me down and showed me how to do it, I found out it was really simple.” Senior Chris Waterbury said, “I think it’s good, but no one really takes full advantage of it; the website has a lot of features that make the process much more organized except many people don’t utilize this.” The Guidance counselors now offer help sessions before and after school on Wednesdays for students who are apprehensive or don’t fully understand Naviance.

Everyone knows how to fill out papers by hand, but quite a few students seem to have difficulties understanding and effectively utilizing Naviance to its full potential. In the end, The Morgan School has chosen to use Naviance.  All students hoping to go to college are going to have to use Naviance whether they are technically inclined or not.