Westside’s Counseling department recently made the switch from the program Naviance to the program SCOIR to help upperclassmen apply to colleges. Head of post secondary education at Westside and head of the Counseling department, Vicki Londer, said that SCOIR provides a variety of new features for students and counselors to use, including virtual tours. 

“With SCOIR, you can do actual virtual tours of campuses, so if a student can’t travel to the university, there’s a virtual tour of campuses there for them,” Londer said.

SCOIR provides many other features to students, including organizing their deadlines and helping students turn in all necessary documents. Senior John Maier said that he finds the many features found throughout SCOIR helpful.

“I kind of like that you can put your scores on a scatter graph and see how you measure up to other people that were admitted to that school or people who are applying, to see whether you’ll be accepted or not,” Maier said. “It also says what documents you need to send to the schools you’re applying to, so that’s helpful to stay organized.”

SCOIR also allows students to find colleges that suit them best and career fields they may be interested in.

“[Using SCOIR is] also a way for them to do a career assessment,” Londer said. “So if they’re like, ‘I want to do something in the medical field but I don’t want to be a doctor,’ they can give them amazing, in-depth information based on not only just what they’re good at but what their personality is, what their likes and dislikes are, so it really hones in on what would be a good career for students.” 

Senior Jack Kinney said that he was initially upset about having to switch from Naviance to SCOIR but has now grown accustomed to it.

“At first, it kind of burdened me because I wasn’t prepared to switch services,” Kinney said. “But it has helped me in the end and has made filling out applications a lot easier.”

Maier said he believes that both students and counselors appreciate the new program.

“SCOIR seems to work pretty well and the counselors seem pretty excited about it,” Maier said.