<p>Can anyone offer input on how much the cutoff for New York might change by?</p>
<p>Well… When I am simply looking at 2012 TX state summary report, which becomes available today, the number of students above score 70 in each subject this year is far more than any past years. It seem a record high by far this year. I also saw a couple of other states. Their scores are also higher than previous years. The natioanl score percentile, released a couple of months ago was no difference from the last year. Now, I am not sure what is going on in the state level. Any insight?</p>
<p>I’m looking at Texas also. It’s the 75-80 range that really matters. It looks to me like the cutoff will go up some, but not as high as 2010 test (class of 2012 - 219). I’m hoping it doesn’t go above 218. Interested in others’ interpretations.</p>
<p>rafael: this post may explain things: <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/15448772-post14.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/15448772-post14.html</a></p>
<p>Thanks, RobD. I guess I would not count my chacne any more for my qualification this year. I got the same cutoff score as last year. A sad day…</p>
<p>Don’t forget state graduation rates come into play. If your PSAT score is the same as last years cutoff, and you suspect that the cutoff may be higher this year, stay cautiously optimistic but start looking for other sources of merit based scholarships. You’ll obviously be named Commended, which is a great accomplishment in itself.</p>
<p>ROBBD–can you take an educated gues at the class of 2014 Texas cutoff?? Thank you so much!!</p>
<p>My guess for TX after I took good education from smart folks here is as follows.
minimum 218 (could be 217 if surprisingly TX junior population increased): Reason for this guess – # of students above 75 for three subjects is just slightly less than the highest cutoff year 2010-2011 bound juniors (score 219) but much higher than normal cutoff year (normally 216 or 215).
max 220 (surprisingly could be 221) : # of students above 70 for three subjects is sizably more than the highest cutoff year 219. Personally, # of kid above 70 also needs to be somewhat taken into account because all the kids around cutoff score should have one or two subjects in the score range 70 to 74.
If you insist to pick one number, I would pick 219. </p>
<p>My D score is same as last year’s cutoff. I bet it puts us out of the luck but it gives us a peaceful relax too for next 7 months >=<. She did her best and great job. It all counts.</p>
<p>Does anyone have any predictions for VT?
Here’s last year’s report: <a href=“http://media.collegeboard.com/digitalServices/pdf/research/VT_12_05_02_01.pdf[/url]”>http://media.collegeboard.com/digitalServices/pdf/research/VT_12_05_02_01.pdf</a>
This year’s: <a href=“http://media.collegeboard.com/digitalServices/pdf/research/VT_13_05_02_01.pdf[/url]”>http://media.collegeboard.com/digitalServices/pdf/research/VT_13_05_02_01.pdf</a></p>
<p>I got a 215 this year and the cutoff last year was 214, but it seems like the scores have gone up…</p>
<p>That’s very helpful Rafael428 - thank you. We’re hoping it comes in at 218, so I guess we’re in limbo until September. I guess we need to put it out of our minds for now. Can somebody please explain how the state graduation rates factor in?</p>
<p>@xrattler53, Stealing this from “Harvester” from another thread: If PA has 5% of the nation’s high school graduates, then 5% of the 16,000 semifinalists will be from PA roughly.</p>
<p>nordic, it does look like VT scores have gone up a bit. I can’t really guess how much that will impact the cutoff though – this part of the prediction game I am not as experienced with.</p>
<p>Take a look at 2010-2011’s also. <a href=“http://media.collegeboard.com/digitalServices/pdf/research/VT_2010_05_02_01.pdf[/url]”>http://media.collegeboard.com/digitalServices/pdf/research/VT_2010_05_02_01.pdf</a> That was the year of the high cutoff (217) in Vermont. </p>
<p>This year looks more similar to 2010-2011 than it does to last year’s so I’m guessing it could go up to 216 or 217 this year based on that data. You just never know how the sections combine. There’s no way of knowing whether some years there are more kids who are “balanced” and equally strong in all 3 areas than others. That’s ultimately going to be the deciding factor. (There could theoretically be more kids in the top band in each section, but they’re all different kids, so the top composite scores may not be as high as those bands suggest…) Vermont has a very small number of test takers, and that makes everything more volatile.</p>
<p>Also the number of test takers has been dropping; if that reflects a drop in the number of students graduating that could also herald an increase in the cutoffs.</p>
<p>So, I would say things look dangerous, nordic, but I wouldn’t count you out of the running yet!</p>
<p>Can someone do CT? From my own analysis it looks like it’ll go up, anyone know by how much? Can I be optimistic with a 220? </p>
<p>Here’s 2010: <a href=“http://media.collegeboard.com/digitalServices/pdf/research/CT_2010_05_02_01.pdf[/url]”>http://media.collegeboard.com/digitalServices/pdf/research/CT_2010_05_02_01.pdf</a>
2011: <a href=“http://media.collegeboard.com/digitalServices/pdf/research/CT_12_05_02_01.pdf[/url]”>http://media.collegeboard.com/digitalServices/pdf/research/CT_12_05_02_01.pdf</a>
2012: <a href=“http://media.collegeboard.com/digitalServices/pdf/research/CT_13_05_02_01.pdf[/url]”>http://media.collegeboard.com/digitalServices/pdf/research/CT_13_05_02_01.pdf</a></p>
<p>The top scores are similar to the year of the highest cutoff, which was 2010, and the cutoff was 220. However, they’re slightly higher than they were that year, although there are a lot more graduating seniors.</p>
<p>my88keys: to the best of our knowledge, NMSC allocates the percentage of NMSF’s in a state based on the percentage of HS graduates in that same state compared to the US as a whole. I don’t have those specific numbers at hand, but let’s say TX has 10% of all the HS graduates in the US. Then NMSC looks at their pool of the top 50,000 and figures out what the TX cutoff should be so that 10% of NMSF’s would also be from TX. For a state like Idaho, maybe they only account for 1% of all US HS graduates, so again NMSC looks at the pool of 50,000 and figures out what the ID cutoff should be so that 1% of NMSF’s would be from ID. </p>
<p>There’s always WAY more NMSF’s from states like TX & CA because they account for so many of the HS graduates in any given year. </p>
<p>I believe they use the graduation percentages from a year previous to set the cutoff because the data isn’t available quickly enough to use the current year. i.e. They’ll use the 2012 graduation rates to adjust the state distribution percentages for the Class of 2014, because the Class of 2013 won’t have finished graduating till end of June 2013, giving less than a month to parse that data before they announce NMSF’s. And since the local districts have to report to the states, and then the states have to report up to the US Dept of Education, it just can’t happen that quickly.</p>
<p>Rafael428, I was looking at the Texas numbers and came to the same conclusions that you did. It should be at least 218 at may be as high as 220. That’s too bad for us, as my S has a 218 and was starting to look at schools that give NMSF merit. Maybe it is just as well that his three favorite schools give little to nothing for NMSF.</p>
<p>Thanks mathmomvt! This waiting game is hard…but I’ll just have to hope for the best. Also, if the “cutoff” was 215, does that include the number 215?</p>
<p>^ Yes, all cutoffs in these threads include that exact number and higher to make people 
- and the next number below it and down to make them :(</p>
<p>Austinaredad, I really hope your S makes the cutoff. Needless to say, there is reasonably good chance with his score. However, I should let my D understand that she should not live on the edge of luck, something out of her control. What I can control now is to mentor her to prepare plan B. If it turns out unfavorably just one point short, then let her think big then say what a deal! then let her laugh aloud and move on. Regardless of turnout, my D will learn more important stuff from this in a long life. I understand how important NM scholarship is for some families and credential of NMSF title to enter their dream schools, but I don’t want my D to be controlled by it for next 7 months and even thereafter-life. Good luck for you and your S. Cheers.</p>
<p>Rafael428, thanks for the kind words and good luck to you and your D also. I sort of wish we just knew, one way or the other, so S could come up with a final list of colleges. If he knew that NMSF was out of reach, he could drop any consideration of those schools that are tempting because of NMSF money. Oh well, I guess the grass is always greener!</p>
<p>We live in Ohio and my son,s score is 215 PSAT. What are his chances of
becoming a semifinalist.</p>