2008 Presidential Scholars candidates list is up

<p>I'll let others guess why this is so and then give my WAG on it.</p>

<p>The research paper provided by curm is useful. It shows a correlation of around 0.9 between SAT and ACT score for the same student. That's a pretty high correlation so Alumother, students who do well on one test generally do well on the other one too. They also use "equipercentile scaling" which just means matching up the scores for the two tests at equivalent percentiles.</p>

<p>Unfortunately, the paper uses data that is from the 1990's, and unless both the College Board and the ACT are working hard to keep their score distributions the same year after year (which they could do in principle by curving differently each year), the concordance table will become inaccurate. Would like to see newer data on the distributions of both ACT and SAT scores. Heck, doesn't even have to be the same students.</p>

<p>Curm I am super bad at numbers. Especially numbers without any words or pictures to help the transmutation from hieroglyphics to meaning....</p>

<p>OK. Making progress in the code. The first numbers are dates. But what are the last numbers?</p>

<p>Curm: what's out of whack is that the number of students taking the ACT has remained about constant, but the percentage of scores 34-36 has gone up dramatically, by almost 2X.</p>

<p>This says that the ACT is not curving to keep the distribution of scores constant from year to year (to my last post), and so the concordance table from the 1990's is really useless.</p>

<p>Not to me. It says that 100,000 more kids generated a big bump in 07 only. Want to bet they were pretty competitive kids looking for an edge in an ever more competitive marketplace? 03-06 are quite consistent at the top. Look again.</p>

<p>100,000 kids more but a 50% increase in 36's? Jiminy.</p>

<p>alu-</p>

<p>year 36's-35's-34's</p>

<p>Yeah. Thanks. Imagine how I used to feel when ostensibly balancing my checkbook:).</p>

<p>Curm: If you look only at 36, I agree with you. But I see something else there too.</p>

<p>If you look at the total with scores 34-36 by year and as a percent of total,</p>

<p>2003 4861 0.42% of total
2004 5433 0.46%
2005 5539 0.47%
2006 6271 0.52%
2007 8205 0.63%</p>

<p>This shows that they are not maintaining the same score percentile distribution year to year.</p>

<p>Another point to consider is that the tests are usually taken many months apart and scores can increase just by the student being older and savvier (S took them 5 months apart).</p>

<p>I agree. Nothing as dramatic as 50% in one year, though. And we don't know that the equally popular SAT hasn't done the same.</p>

<p>07 numbers <a href="http://www.collegeboard.com/prod_downloads/highered/ra/sat/SAT_composite_CR_M_percentile_ranks.pdf%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.collegeboard.com/prod_downloads/highered/ra/sat/SAT_composite_CR_M_percentile_ranks.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>I added up the 1510's thru 1600's and got edit: 13,190 with 1206 1600's. That's more than 5 times the normal number of 36's. alu came up with 8205 ACT's 34-36. Pretty dang "on" (edit: considering also that the SAT has 1.5 test-takers as opposed to 1.3. Someone better with a keyboard than me ( not hard) do the math for us. I think it should be dang close. 34-36's/1510-1600.</p>

<p>hey, yay. Look at what we are doing. 0.63% score a 34-36? Veritable vagabonds, or standardized test hobos at that level. LOL.</p>

<p>Maybe I can do it with my pencil...hmmm..naught from naught is naught, carry your chillun....</p>

<p>Ha. I was also looking at that same link from College Board. If I add up 1510's and higher I get 13,190 (how'd you get 8838?)</p>

<p>In order to match with the 0.63% 34-36 ACT, I need to draw the line below 1530. So 1530-1600 is now equivalent to ACT 34-36. The concordance table is in fact off. ACT score of 34 is today better than the old table would suggest.</p>

<p>The 1206 1600's is 0.081%. 314 ACT's of 36 is 0.024%. So the 36 ACT is harder to achieve (i.e. lower percentage) than the 1600 SAT.</p>

<p>Did I do that right?</p>

<p>Duh. I forgot a whole column.</p>

<p>You can tell it was D who missed 1 on the SAT Math , 0 on the ACT. Not her hapless dad. Maybe the poolboy was good with numbers?</p>

<p>I feel like a CPA. Head hurts. Too many numbers.</p>

<p>:eek: Use your edit feature. Some of us haven't eaten yet. ;) </p>

<p>I couldn't even do percentages. I'm really losing it.</p>

<p>I'm still wondering how a 141 made it in NY...</p>

<p>I don't want to sound like an SAT partisan (I want to tread lightly around here!!), but isn't it possible that the SAT represents a more self-selected group while the ACT reflects all those forced to take the test in IL, hence possibly making the percentage cutoff a bit skewed?</p>

<p>piccolo, NY only had 6 kids make a 36 in 07, and that includes 144,143,142. Out of 37,863 seniors. My D's year Texas only had 6 out of @75,000.</p>

<p>So then why do I still get it? Did they take the 141 because there were less than 20 36's?</p>