By June 30, PHS will have completed its transition between the college and career-planning platforms Naviance and Scoir. After several years of using Naviance to help students plan for post-secondary education endeavors, students and parents received notices in early January that the school would be moving to Scoir, a more interactive platform. Previously, Naviance had been used mainly by students in grades ten and up, allowing them to research colleges and track community service hours. Also, when their college list was finalized, applications, letters of recommendation, and transcripts could all be sent through Naviance. The program could also be used to provide students in lower grades a personalized list of possible careers based on their interests, giving them insight for their future. Despite these many capabilities, Naviance was not very user-friendly, prompting the change to Scoir.

Although the switch was sudden and unexpected, PHS college counselor Nipurna Shah reassures that not much will change.

“Scoir does pretty much exactly the same thing [as Naviance…]. Scoir is a little bit more modern, and the user experience is much easier [...] Naviance is a little clunky,” Shah said. Immediately after logging into Scoir, students are greeted by an enthusiastic message: “Welcome to the Scoir fam!” The site’s layout is organized to promote a more interactive user experience. Several helpful tools include a page that allows side-by-side comparison of universities, a calendar for application deadlines and visits, and even a section that displays registration for office hour appointments with Shah. In addition, there are several elements not available on Naviance, including videos and Scoir’s own podcast “Inside College Admissions,” which gives detailed advice about the application process and features guests such as college admissions counselors.

Many schools in the area have already switched to Scoir, making PHS one of the last to get on the Scoir bandwagon. This program will be more accessible, since it can be downloaded as a mobile application on cell phones, allowing the information on the platform easier to obtain and use for both parents and students.

“We really want to make sure that … counselors, parents, and students are all on the same page [throughout the application process],” Shah said.

Current juniors are the most likely to engage with Scoir, using it to start researching colleges and eventually organizing their college applications directly on the platform.

“I haven’t really had that much experience using [Scoir], but it seems to work. I don’t like Naviance [because] I think it’s really annoying to log into, so I say [the change is] great,” said Kailani Harrison ’24.

Although this platform is most relevant for current juniors, Shah suggests that current freshmen and sophomores should start to interact with the website, as most underclassmen aren’t able to reap the benefits of the programs that PHS pays for, due to the simple fact that most students aren’t aware of its existence.

“For ninth and tenth grade students, really just start exploring and playing around with it, [so that by next year], you’ll be really familiar with it. The college journey is really one of self exploration and finding those schools. Scoir makes it really easy [to start this process],” Shah said.

Since this is also the time of year when students have to start thinking about their course selections for the upcoming year, Shah suggests using the specialized career profiles and clusters on the platform to choose courses and participate in clubs that align with careers that interest them. These can be accessed by clicking on one of the many surveys present on the home screen or by clicking on the discovery tab located at the top right of the website.

Meanwhile, there is good news for students who are concerned about how their hard-earned community service hours will transfer to the new program. Because x2VOL, the current software used, is separate from Naviance, community service hours will continue to be stored there, meaning that students won’t need to learn to navigate a new program. As of now, the administration is still working out the logistics of where the site will be accessed through. Whether the login information will be through Scoir or PPS link, Karas assured that students’ hours will not be lost.

“Don’t be afraid of the transition … just have fun with it,” Karas said.