<p>It could be worse. At least the data that has been released - the mean scores - is encouraging! Just imagine how frustrated we’d all be if the means had increased and we were still waiting for the state data! (I’m trying to channel my inner optimist) </p>
<p>Finally! It is posted.
<a href=“SAT Suite of Assessments – Reports | College Board”>http://research.collegeboard.org/programs/psat/data/cb-jr</a></p>
<p>I added the Ns to my spreadsheet. At this point, I expect WI cutoff would not be higher than 209. </p>
<p>Wow! Finally! I was so excited! Just looked up California… And have no idea what to do with the information. :-S If anyone here can help me figure out what to do with the numbers I’d appreciate it! (Or maybe someone here is also from CA and can share what they think it means for this year’s cutoff score).</p>
<p>Compared to 2012, it looks like more kids did well in math, but less were in the top tier for CR and Writing. Hopefully that means it won’t go up at all, or if it does, not by much? Am I making sense?</p>
<p>In Illinois, the number of high scorers (70 - 80) has gone up in M by a lot, has gone down in CR, and is about the same in W. The totals of all students scoring in the upper categories (70-80 and 75-80) is slightly above last year and at all time highs. I’m afraid that means the best we can hope for is that Illinois’ cutoff will remain the same as last year - 216. It could go a point either way depending on the target number of NMSF’s and whether they need to adjust up or down to get closer to the target.</p>
<p>It’s going to be a long wait until September for those sitting on 216 (like my D).</p>
<p>Let me process PA, then I can look around some more. PA has considerably more math high scorers, but everything else looks “okay”. I’m not sure how much the math data will affect the cut, especially when the overall means are fairly close to national, or slightly lower. PA last year was 217, and I’d still predict a slight drop…maybe 216, but I wouldn’t be sweat free with that score. I can’t imagine it would go up. I’m not thrilled with the higher math scores though. PA’s overall totals in both the 75-80 and 70-74 though dropped ever so slightly. PA might bring back another 217. (Just read Pmagoo’s thoughts, and PA seems to have similar trends.)</p>
<p>In looking at PA, I am not so assured of a drop, but I would agree that a rise is unlikely. We need it to stay the same. Guess we’ll be sweating it out some more!</p>
<p>I don’t like the huge increase in high math scores. That was the one area where my math kid could have pulled away from the crowd, but it looks like the crowd all did well. That worries me about Texas, although overall the number look pretty close to 2010 which had a 219 cutoff.</p>
<p>I have come to the same conclusion as pmagoo for NY. I did a pretty detailed statistical analysis and it is clear that the CR and W scores are a little lower but the math is a lot higher. I see NY staying at the same cutoff +/- 1 or between 218 and 220, which is not good for my son who got a 217.</p>
<p>Has anyone ever compared recent cutoffs to older cutoffs back in the day when there were only two sections? It seems to me that the cutoffs are way higher, accounting for three sections versus two, than they were 20 or so years ago. My wife was a NMS and my son’s scores seem a good bit better than her’s were but he probably will just barely miss the cutoff. I doubt the test is easier so I can only conclude that people are doing better on it. I also doubt the educational system is better so, either kids are studying more, there are more kids able to perform at the higher levels or both. Can you say tiger mom?</p>
<p>I looked at the distributions and there is a bump, or shoulder, at the high end. That means there is an abnormally high number of kids getting 70-80 on each section. That happens when you add a statistically different distribution to the existing distribution. This won’t be a popular opinion but it looks like what would happen if you add only the top 0.1% of a group’s socio-economic and/or intellectual population to another group’s full distribution. Congrats tiger moms! You too can now come on a message board like this and ask if your son/daughter’s 230 will make the cutoff. Oh well, at least the Ivies are on to this and won’t let their student population get skewed by the same group.</p>
<p>I’m hoping Washington DC goes from 224 to 223 for my child. For Washington DC, the CR numbers for scores 70-80 went from 6.9% to 4.4%, and for Writing the percentage who scored between 70-80 went from 6.2% to 4.3%, so for our state those two definitely went down. The percentage in math who scored between 70-80 stayed the same at 4.7% as last year, so for those disappointed with Math, where did the Math go up? </p>
<p>In PA the numbers in math went up considerably, mostly in the 75-80 group, 1.5% up from 1.0%. The 70-74 group also went up .4% for math. Those on the bubble can only hope that these were not strong verbal students, LOL! </p>
<p>I certainly wouldn’t bank on a drop for PA, but I think the data points toward a slight backward trend. However, this backward trend might only amount to 1/2 of a point, which would really not be a drop at all. An increase really doesn’t seem justified, but then again, I’m not sure I would have seen last year’s +3 coming. Ultimately we just don’t have all the data we need. Are those strong math students also strong verbal students? Things like that can really change the outcome. I wish we had data for the selection index!</p>
<p>Where is the best place to look to guesstimate if the cut-off might go down - the percentage change between 70-80 or 75-80? </p>
<p>Pom, how did you reach your conclusion about WI? I’m not a stats person, just messing around. But it looks to me like WI will equal last year’s 210 or it’s all time high of 211. Here also the math scores are much higher than ever before, but lower CR/W, as others reported.</p>
<p>I was looking for patterns, and it appears if you add the top 6#s together- CR/M/W for 70-74 and 75-80 (I know they are overlapping populations, but it seems to work), years with totals of 7.8-8.4 have cut scores of 207-209, though I can’t find a way yet to correlate exactly those years to their cut scores. </p>
<p>Years with 6# totals of 9.0-11.7 have cut scores of 209-211. For this 2nd batch of years, if you add in the 3 numbers CR/M/W for 65-69 to the previous 6#s, these new totals predict cut scores nicely. The year with 23.9 is cut score 209; those with 26.1/ 26.6 go with cut score 210; and 27.6/28.6/28.6 go with 211. But this method doesn’t work with the lower scoring years, so maybe it’s smoke and mirrors.Those years all have 9# totals of 22.9-25, lower than the 210-211 years, as one might expect, but they don’t match up so nicely as the 210-211 years to particular cut scores.</p>
<p>This year the sum of 6 #s is 10.2, predicting 209-211. Adding in the next 3 #s gives 27.3, kind of midway between 210-211, could go either way.</p>
<p>I’m predicting 210-211 for WI. However, the sample size is small, only 11 years for which I have both data and cut scores. Or is there more data somewhere? And I really don’t know a thing about stats. </p>
<p>This method I hit on probably won’t work everywhere. WI is a low participation state with low cut score. So the 65-70 scores affect cut score more than MA and CA and company. I was looking for a way to use the 60-64 scores as well, since a student could get one score in this range and still make NMF, but so far not seeing it. I’ll look again and report back if I have an insight. What are others doing to analyze?</p>
<p>Well, reporting in from California with two surprises: (1) It is raining (hard); and (2) The number of juniors that killed the Math section is very high. I guess the second surpise is not really surprising given what others are already posting for their states–but I really thought that the overall number of juniors in the 75-80 categories would be down when aggregating the three sections. However, high number of test-takers in the math 75-80 group means there is a slight increase in the total number of students scoring in the 75-80 range in at least one category (other two categories were down, apparently like other states). So what’s it mean? Unfortunately, I am revising my predicition for California to no change (223). Would not be shocked to see it down or up one point from that (i.e., 222 or 224). My son has a 224, so nervous but optimistic.
Good luck to all! </p>
<p>There is unfortunately no set formula, and of course as Celeste points out, there is overlapping data. Is the kid with the 80 in math, the same kid with a 75+ in verbal? Obviously there can be kids with 80’s in math, that are weak verbally, that might only have totals in the 200 range, who would NOT be in the running. However, we have no way of really discerning this.</p>
<p>I’ve been looking at the following. Some data looks “good” for PA, but other looks bad. For PA, I think the data most closely resembles 2009, without the “jump” from the previous year. In 2009 our cut was 216, up from 214. Last year we were sitting at 217, and I agree somewhat with Luv, that a drop is far from guaranteed. Depending how the details fall, PA could even go up. But I’m thinking it will come down to either 216 or 217 for us.</p>
<p>Actual # of kids in 75-80 range (I think this is more important than the %, which can be skewed by who is testing)
Actual # of kids in 70-74 range
Total # in 70-80 range
State means compared to national means
State standard deviations compared to national
State means compared to last year for state
State SD compared to last year for state
Total number of kids testing
Trends over time</p>
<p>All drops are good, if lower cuts are what you want. </p>
<p>*** Special note for the future, since this information gets lost in time. State summaries for 2013 (the class of 2015) came out on February 28th, 2014. ***</p>
<p>Can we tell what the commended cut-off is likely to be yet?</p>
<p>Good question Greatfalls. Without much thought, I’d guess maybe 202. The good news here I think is that I believe we get insight into who qualifies for the first step some time in April, and from there we can nail the commendation level. (They’ve done this in past years, let’s just hope the April notification continues. I’ve heard speculation that it might not.)</p>
<p>any idea if Washington state will go up or down from last year? My daughter has 221</p>
<p>I have also looked at PA. Specifically, I look at the yearly delta of total scores (M+CR+W) in the 75-80 range. When I use that method it shows a decent correlation to the cutoff. In fact, it predicts the cutoff the last 10 years except for 2005. This year there is a delta of exactly 0. That is more evidence the cutoff may not change for PA. This is BAD news because we are sitting precariously at 216 and need a 1 point drop.</p>
<p>The only potential saving grace is that PA broke a several year trend of % of test takers (i.e. this year it went up). Therefore, if the graduation rate roughly matches the test taking rate, the number of SMF in PA will go up slightly and may force a reduction of a point. </p>
<p>As others have said, we are all guessing at this point. Now we wait for Sept…</p>
<p>4toPay, what do you mean by “yearly delta”? Are you talking specifically about the % numbers for each subtest? (My data summary uses actual testers in those ranges, and shows a slight decrease.)</p>