2014 questions, speculations, comments

<p>we;re at 216 padad so i feel ur pain… Annoying that we’re at the same point 9 months later that we were when they first got the scores. which for both of our kids is they will either just make it or just miss it. aagh. I can say for mine and hopefully others across the state, that mine is very strong in one section(CR) and only hit the 75 plus mark in that area. so for him, the composite is the score that really counts and not the section breakdowns. and by this I mean if there are other kids like him, the composite score may still be in the range of our kids despite lots of kids scoring higher in each section. Really wish we had an answer sooner as it would have helped with college planning. has she looked at Temple? they have increased their merit scholarships for kids with high stats regardless of nm status.</p>

<p>@jrmama486: I would say your daughter is definitely in the clear. Florida’s all-time high was a 215, and we have no reason to believe that it will jump to 217 this year. A jump to 217 would mean an increase of 6 points from last year, something that’s virtually unheard of!</p>

<p>padad2d: sitting here with my son in PA with a 215 also. I’m really hoping your child and mine (and everyone else!) doesn’t miss it by one lousy point! Unfortunately, whatever the cutoff, I guess there will always be those that will miss by one. Really hoping for 215 though. :-)</p>

<p>ctl987: She is interested in teaching language, and writing. She has ruled out city schools (though there are many very good ones in the region, such as Temple). As with your son, she also had one very strong section and the others very good. Totally in agreement with the wait, and it is amazing that they have not gotten to the point where they notify the students directly, online, as is now done with SAT, and AP exams. Good luck to your son and his decisions.</p>

<p>PAMommy2: It wouldn’t be so bad to miss by a point, if you didn’t know that your child’s score was in the top 1% in the nation and it came down to state rankings. Hopefully we will squeeze through…and soon. Good luck to your son.</p>

<p>Interesting to know we have a boarding school here in Kansas. I have known one boy here in Kansas who attended a boarding school and it is in Pennsylvania. </p>

<p>On another note, I do feel sorry for financiallly struggling students and their families who happen to live in states such as new Jersey with those high cutoffs.</p>

<p>ProfDad wrote: “New Jersey spends about 60% more per student in its public schools than Kansas does.”</p>

<p>New Jersey also has one of the highest, if not the highest, tax rates in the nation; that’s for both property tax and overall tax burden. We’ve lived all over the country, and one of the things we really notice about New Jersey is how highly education is valued here, more really than anyplace else we’ve lived.</p>

<p>I guess its s doubke-edged sword. Our school funding is pitiful in Kansas. They even put a CAP on how much money can be raised locally because they don’t want some Kansas students to have a better education than others even if those communitied sre willing and able to pay for it! How crazy is that?</p>

<p>That’s another thing about New Jersey: some of our money is redirected to needier school districts. See: Abbott districts. Quick Wikipedia quote: “Since the Abbott original ruling in 1985, New Jersey increased spending such that Abbott district students received 22% more per pupil (at $20,859) vs. non-Abbott districts (at $17,051) in 2011.”</p>

<p>@PennyKSU, We do something similar to that here in NJ also; I believe the NJ Supreme Court mandated it. As it is, fully 1/3 of my property taxes go to Newark (I’m in Essex County, which is also Newark’s county). A few (2-3) miles from me, the towns pay considerably less in property taxes, but are otherwise very similar in demographics, proximity to mass transit, commute time to NYC, quality of schools, etc.</p>

<p>I like NJ, and as ridethewave notes, it is a state that values education. That said, when my wife retires, I’m not sure that it will make sense to stay here with property taxes the way that they are.</p>

<p>The sad part about this is…there is no guarantee that we will even know more tomorrow. Even though NMSC is located in Illinois, we are not usually the first to get results. It could be days before some of us know anything. UGH! I think I need to get a life. I wonder if I can sneak online during lunch tomorrow to check this thread?</p>

<p>Just curious if any of your kids have received marketing postcards from colleges congratulating them on becoming a finalist? DD got a postcard from Carleton that implied she was a finalist. Thoughts?</p>

<p>I’m in rural New York here…I suppose it would be helpful if wealthier districts did share their taxes a bit, but I don’t see that passing soon. We don’t have anything like the resources I hear about downstate, but colleges say they try to adjust for whether a school offers AP or not, etc. Hoping so.</p>

<p>There is a district about 20 minutes away that is much wealthier than any of the others around, and we are sad because they poached our physics teacher this summer! Our school had the best physics scores around for a few years, but now that teacher’s gone, sigh. But we still love our small school. We haven’t had a NMS semi finalist in years, but maybe this year? My dd’s score ties the record cap of 221 in 2007, so we’re hopeful.</p>

<p>Anyone got score thoughts on OR cutoff ? Traditionally cut-off has been between 213 -216 (last year was 213 / all-time high was 216 in 2012) but like CA there seem to be more kids who achieved >70 in at least one Section this year. Wondering how much that impacts the cutoff?</p>

<p>Any thoughts? (Thanks in advance)</p>

<p>go2mom, we got that card too. It sounds like many high scorers got it, so I’m not putting much credence on it. We liked the origami instructions though; very clever.</p>

<p>go2mom and mdcmom: my son received that card as well. I was hoping it meant something, but likely not.</p>

<p>Thanks arkie 2014! I was thinking the same thing but it’s good to hear someone else say it so I know I’m not being over confident. Can’t wait to hear!! By the way, I have a son, not a daughter :)</p>

<p>If a student lives in one state but attends school in another state, then what NMSC cut off applies? Your home state or school state? We see this situation on state borders where kids attend a private school (I.e. Southern IN & Louisville).</p>

<p>In NMSC’s Official Student Guide, in the scholarship section, pg 6, it says </p>

<p>‘A participant can be considered for
Semifinalist standing in only one state or selection unit,
based on the high school in which the student is regularly
enrolled when taking the PSAT/NMSQT.’</p>

<p><a href=“http://nationalmerit.org/student_guide.pdf[/url]”>http://nationalmerit.org/student_guide.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>However, it never hurts to check with them. In 11th grade, my daughter attended an online HS based in another state, but our state DPI considered her to be home-schooled because the online school was not in our state and so she hadn’t applied for the inter-district transfer that would have had our home district pay for the online classes. She also took 2 classes at the local high school which were added to the online school transcript when completed. I called NMSC and they said for this situation she is a student in the state in which she resides and is home-schooled. This actually made a difference for her, as the online school’s state had higher cutoff scores, high enough that she would have missed the cutoff there by one point.</p>

<p>@I5OR217
I think that the cutoff for Oregon will most likely be 215, maybe 216.
it’s true that there was a universal rise in kids in the 70+ range from last year, but there are the same or fewer kids in this range than there were in the class of 2012.
I’m also from Oregon, waiting with a 217.</p>