<p>"snowman2007: It's based on ACT score or a converted SAT to ACT score. They add up the score in all four parts (max. 144) and they go down from there (all 36s are not the same--142 to 144). For SAT (CR+M only) it's usually 1600 or very close. In some states they may even go down to 140-141, in others you need 144."</p>
<p>Diginetgod and I got 141s and we're from NY, which is obviously one of the top 5 most competitive states.</p>
<p>affle - just do what you can, but definitely submit the application! You're morally obligated after asking your guidance counselor to do all that work; their part goes way beyond a normal counselor report, as you saw. (Frankly, I think my son's GC breathed a sigh of relief when S said he was not going to proceed with the application.) I think there's a high attrition rate due to a tough application, so you may find yourself competing against very few people, and who knows what could happen.</p>
<p>i am surprised; illinois has as many candidates as new york and has more than texas. anybody knows why?</p>
<p>I have a pretty good guess. Lots of ACT 36s in Illinois. ACT hasn't yet released statistics for the Class of 2008, but for the Class of 2007, 68 of the 314 test-takers worldwide who got an ACT composite score of 36 were from Illinois (where all public school students are required to take the ACT, and most private school kids take it, too). If the numbers are similar for the Class of 2008, and no reason to believe they won't be, there's the explanation for many Presidential Scholars candidates from Illinois. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.act.org/news/data/07/pdf/states/Illinois.pdf%5B/url%5D">http://www.act.org/news/data/07/pdf/states/Illinois.pdf</a>
<a href="http://www.act.org/news/data/07/pdf/National2007.pdf%5B/url%5D">http://www.act.org/news/data/07/pdf/National2007.pdf</a></p>
<p>Anyone know how long Illinois has required alll public school students to take the ACT? Is this new this year?</p>
<p>wjb,
thanks. i see that IL has roughly 1/10 of all ACT test takers yet it accounts for 1/5 of all students with perfect score. looks like illinois is doing something right....</p>
<p>Looking at the ACT links that wjb provided raises some interesting questions. Looks like Illinois students take more ACTs than students in most states--140,000 in 2007 out of 1.3 million, and as wjb noted, received more than 20% of the perfect 36's out of 314 nationally.</p>
<p>Looking at the Presidential Scholar candidate lists from the past few years reveals an interesting fact--approximately 130 candidates from Illinois this year, far more than previous years (I count 48 in 2005, 45 in 2006 and 50 in 2007). They must have a minimum of 40 to work with, and lower the cutoff incrementally until they get there.</p>
<p>So why the huge increase this year? I'll throw out two plausible explanations:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>The total number students in Illinois who received perfect 1600 SAT (M +CR) or 36 ACT scores this year is more than twice what it was in previous years (they all got much smarter or the test got easier), or</p></li>
<li><p>The Government made a mistake (I know--this is hard to believe). We know they forgot to include the ACT this year when they first notified candidates, then added them in later. Did they make the same error in past years, except nobody caught it?</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Anyone care to provide alternative explanations for what is going on in Illinois? Would be interesting to know if any of the Illinois Presidential Scholars in past years qualified based on ACT. In any case, there are now a WHOLE LOT of candidates in Illinois for those 2 Scholar spots.</p>
<p>yayverily: Not new. Illinois has required public school juniors to take the ACT since 2001. <a href="http://www.act.org/news/releases/2000/06-19-00.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.act.org/news/releases/2000/06-19-00.html</a></p>
<p>
[quote]
In any case, there are now a WHOLE LOT of candidates in Illinois for those 2 Scholar spots.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>yay, illinois sends a lot of students to my alma mater. ;)</p>
<p>Wait a sec...if there were 68 perfect ACT scores in IL in 2007, how could there possibly be only 50 PS candidates, including both SAT and ACT? </p>
<p>I'm going with my explanation #2.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Thomas Jefferson: 21! That's amazing.
[/quote]
duh! :P lol. and does anyone know the cutoff for NJ this year?</p>
<p>"The Government made a mistake (I know--this is hard to believe). We know they forgot to include the ACT this year when they first notified candidates, then added them in later. Did they make the same error in past years, except nobody caught it?"</p>
<p>I think you're on to something, yv. They didn’t “forget,” but a candidate’s protest may have prompted a shift in policy.</p>
<p>Here’s the story, which is partial hearsay, but quite plausible. </p>
<p>My son's name was one that did not initially appear on the list, although he scored a 36. I phoned PS, who told me that in Illinois, males needed a perfect 36 (144) to qualify: 142s and 143s didn't make the cut. That explained why my son was left out, but under the category of “pick your battles,” we decided to leave it at that. From someone else, however, I learned that this year, at least one other 36 scorer in another state did lodge a complaint. Typically, PS has chosen roughly 40 (20 males, 20 females) from each state as candidates. PS' method has apparently been to first include all 1600 scorers in a state, then to name as many ACT scorers as needed to get to the magic number of 40 (with ties often making the number go a few over). In Illinois and other states this year (and presumably other years) that meant that PS got to the magic number of 40 well before exhausting the list of ACT 36s, and SAT 1600s arguably got an unfair advantage. </p>
<p>The argument that SAT candidates had an unfair advantage over ACT candidates must have resonated, because two weeks after the original list went up, my son received notice that he was in the candidate pool, and so were were two other students we know who scored less-than-perfect 36s.</p>
<p>wjb: thanks for explaining--it does make sense. So it's a change in policy this year that caused the huge change in Illinois. Obviously they should treat SAT and ACT equally, and it shouldn't be hard, </p>
<p>144 and 1600 first
143 and 1590 next
142 and 1580 third,</p>
<p>etc. until they reach the minimum of 40. Anything else wouldn't be right.</p>
<p>That's still not fair, though, right? A 143 is still a 36 but a 1590 is not a perfect. A 143 is usually 1 question wrong but a 1590 is typically 3-4 wrong (unless it was math).</p>
<p>I don't know what the concordance is between ACT (English, Critical Reading, Math, and Science) and SAT (CR and Math only), but yes, 142 and 143 still get you a 36. I believe PS has now decided that any 36 (whether "high" or "low") equates with a 1600. </p>
<p>On the old concordance charts, before SAT added Writing, a 1600 = 36, and 1560-1590 = 35.</p>
<p>I see. Sounds tricky to compare SAT and ACT scores since they're curved differently, and the questions could be different level of difficulty.</p>
<p>Tricky, indeed!</p>
<p>^^yayverily #133 and amb3r #134</p>
<p>From the experience of QuantMechPrime, I can provide a datum: 1590 CR + M on the SAT I (1 wrong in M, 0 wrong in CR) is equated to a 140 ACT total, by the Presidential Scholars Program equating scheme. I had seen the 1560-1590 = 35 conversion & so thought that 1590 might be converted to 141--but it isn't.</p>
<p>QMP didn't take ACT, so we can't provide support or contradiction for the conversion. Not complaining--I figured QMP was lucky to score 790 rather than 780 or 770 with one wrong on SAT M, and the odds of actually winning are quite low. </p>
<p>But we are in a not-very-competitive state, from the standpoint of National Merit Semi-Finalist cut-offs, and 141 was required for eligibility.</p>
<p>So, two comments:
1) If eligiblity is of interest to your S/D, and if your S/D is likely to make a very small number of mistakes on standardized tests, but not zero, it might be in his/her interest to take the ACT.
2) You can't guess the Presidential Scholars' cut-offs by the NMSF cut-offs.</p>
<p>Thanks.</p>
<p>I saw the ACT-SAT concordance table from 1994-1996, which says that a 36 ACT and 1600 SAT are equivalent.</p>
<p>Has this table been updated? Can't find any newer data at college board.</p>
<p>^^, Yes, the math curve is more vicious than the CR curve, especially near 800. Whereas 3 wrong on CR can still be an 800, 1 wrong on M is already a 790 (rarely), more often a 780 or 770. That's very unlucky for the presidential scholarship, your S/D should have gotten it :( A 1590 with 790 math should really be like a 143, a 1590 with 790 CR would be more like 141 or 140.</p>