3 new Naviance features that are transforming college planning

This post was produced in collaboration with our colleagues at PowerSchool.

It’s no secret that engaging Gen Z is a challenge for enrollment teams. But high school leaders, teachers, and counselors are grappling with these same challenges as well—from growing mental health concerns to the rise in students opting out of college.

That’s why PowerSchool Naviance CCLR, the leading K-12 college, career, and life readiness platform, is launching new features across 2024 to keep students engaged, help them get answers to their most pressing questions, and simplify access to college. Since EAB works closely with PowerSchool through our Intersect partnership, we are eager to learn from these new developments.

Here are the three features we’re most excited about.

1. Introducing PowerBuddy for College and Career: Game-changing AI to personalize college planning

In the coming months, students with access to Naviance CCLR will also gain access to PowerBuddy for College and Career, an AI-powered assistant. Designed to engage with students conversationally, PowerBuddy makes career exploration and postsecondary planning simple, personalized, and accessible.

With PowerBuddy, students will be able to:

• Find new colleges that are a good fit based on their interests, GPA, test scores, location, and more
• Explore potential majors and career paths
• Curate a college list and narrow down options
• Connect with colleges of interest
• And more–without ever leaving Naviance

With PowerBuddy, Naviance students can ask an AI-powered assistant to help them conduct research, save schools of interest, curate a list of colleges, and connect with Intersect partners.

Notably, these new tools will also expand the reach of Intersect by giving students the ability to connect with Intersect schools from directly within the chatbot.

How to maximize your usage of generative AI

2. A New Digital Portfolio to Capture Students’ Accomplishments

Students today are engaging in more clubs, sports, and extracurricular activities than they did two decades ago. But without a centralized location to document those experiences and what they learned from participating in them, students often rely on memory alone to build a portrait of their accomplishments.

That’s why PowerSchool is introducing Portfolio, a new tool in Naviance that empowers students to build a holistic view of their accomplishments, from academic highlights to extracurricular achievements, self-discovery results, and more.

But Portfolio isn’t just about tracking; it’s also about showcasing. Intuitive features help students easily share a curated version of their portfolio with colleges for scholarships, job applications, etc., that goes beyond the limitations of a typical high school transcript.

Portfolio will allow Naviance students to build a holistic view of their academic and extracurricular accomplishments.

Learn more about how to adapt your enrollment strategy to better meet students’ needs

3. Expanding college access with Match integration

With student stress and anxiety at an all-time high, providing students with simpler pathways to college is becoming more and more critical. That’s why Naviance is also partnering with Match to simplify and expand college access to Naviance students nationwide.

Naviance students can now receive admission and scholarship offers through Match without having to submit an application. Directly within Naviance, students can create a simple, anonymous profile that that gains them access to Match. From there, they can add additional information to their profile, review admission offers, and more.

Naviance students have access to EAB’s Match platform, allowing them to receive admission and scholarship offers without ever submitting an application.

Over the next year, this partnership will not only simplify the student experience, but also dramatically expand our Match student audience among more than 6,000 Naviance high schools nationwide.

Why Match’s partnership with Naviance will transform college admissions

Naviance’s adoption of new personalization features, AI technology, and integration with Match marks a significant step forward in addressing the challenges that enrollment teams face every day.