@mstomper…thanks. I’m still trying to figure out this whole process
Thank you very much, @WRUAustin! My son has a 222 in NY. Keeping my fingers crossed that your prediction is right, for DS and @96redse5sp and @nycuws kids.
Just thought I’d jump in since so many here are mentioning OU. My class of 2015 son is trying to decide between universities, and OU is one of them. So over Spring Break we went back for another visit (we were there earlier in the year also). Most of the other students visiting that day through the National Scholars office were juniors with good PSAT scores. They had all decided to visit OU after receiving the mail. FWIW, the National Scholars office is amazing there. It never occurred to us to visit until we knew for certain my son was a NMSF, but seeing all the juniors there made me think that it would have been great to visit earlier. We loved the campus and everyone was very friendly. Also, the fraternity issue had just hit the news, but campus was calm and students and faculty/administrators alike were willing to discuss the issue openly. OU is worth consideration! If you plan to visit, definitely contact the National Scholars office in advance.
Because several have been interested in MD and because I had a few moments, I decided to run the numbers on MD.
First Method, Revised Method**
State,2015 prediction, 2015 actual, 2016 Prediction,2015P,2015A,2016P
MD ,220.7 ,221,220.8,220.6,221,220.5
MD has been very stable over these past 7 years. Not much change in population and not much change in the number of test takers. My best guess is 221 (or no change from last year). I don’t think a big jump is in the cards.
@WRUAustin, thanks. Now that I know the numbers, I need to read up on all of this and see what it means for my son since he is above those numbers.
@buckeyeinmd
start here:
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/national-merit-scholarships/1365011-faq-for-the-psat-sat-nmsf-nmf-process-p1.html
also look at:
http://nmfscholarships.yolasite.com/
@3scoutsmom, thanks
Thanks, @WRUAustin. If our son makes it in MD it could save us tons of money since he’s interested in Ole Miss.
Thanks, @WRUAustin! Unfortunately, I got 220, but I’ll keep my fingers crossed.
@mstomper Well, Hotty Toddy! Your son is in good shape. Seems like Ole Miss is a fun place.
@crimsonwarrior You stand a decent chance. My prediction was right in between 220 and 221. I chose 221 to be conservative, but it could have easily been 220. Your score is very good, regardless of it meets the cutoff… Congratulations. I hope it turns out to be 220.
@WRUAustin The information you have posted is very helpful. I don’t understand the methodology but appreciate the calculations. Have you done a calculation for Louisiana? My junior son has a 213 (R 68, M 67, W 78) and I am concerned since your original post says that students who score high on one test and low on the other two may not make the cut-off. We were pretty hopeful since 213 is above the historical cut off for our state. Now I’m not so sure.
@molly704 only to total of the three scores is considered for the cut off. Last the year the cut off for LA was 208 I think you’re safe with 213;-)
any guess on what WA state cutoff would be? Last year it was 219.
WA’s scores have a similar trend lately to TX. I calculated TX as no change from last year. If you want me to go through the full calculation for WA, I will if you do some legwork. The required data can be obtained if you look at post 187 (instead of googling you can use the following link: http://research.collegeboard.org/programs/psat/data/cb-jr). Post 194 shows a nice compilation of the data I need. It would take you about 10 minutes.
@wruaustin would you be willing to do Florida estimate for this year?
year CR/math/Writing/Students
14-15 451/792/518/70287
13-14 453/776/389/69240
12-13 662/638/574/67012
11-12 418/457/542/66958
10-11 552/809/666/66939
9-10 451/637/352/65776
8-9 448/470/360/68440
Thanks
See post #177.
Actually I will combine my previous calculations here:
First Method, Revised Method**
State,2015 prediction, 2015 actual, 2016 Prediction,2015P,2015A,2016P
MD ,220.7 ,221,220.8,220.6,221,220.5
TN ,212.4 ,212,212.7,212.2,212,212.1
TX ,217.6 ,218,217.5,217.9,218,218.0
CA ,221.8 ,222,221.9,222.4, 222,222.4
DE ,216.2 ,215,216.0,216.3,215,215.9
NY ,219.4 ,218,219.0,218.7,218,218.6
FL ,211.8 ,211,212.3,211.6,211,212.1
NJ ,222.5 ,224,222.3,223.2,224,223.3
NJ* ,223.1,224,222.7,224.4,224,224.0
A few notes: “A” stands for Actual and “P” stands for Predicted. When I put the prediction of 2015 compared to the 2015 actual, I am not using the 2015 data in the linear regression (because that would be cheating. 
). The linear regression is recalculated with the 2015 data when making the 2016 prediction. Overall, the revised method appears better based on the R2 linear regression values. The actual predictions for both methods round off to be the same number for every state except for NJ. I calculated NJ twice. There is one year where the data really doesn’t fit the line. I don’t know why. I calculated the NJ result with all the data and the NJ* result by throwing out the bad point. On average, the 2015 predictions were off by 0.6.
Can you figure out for me what WA state cutoff might be?
Thanks!
@kensongdds
I’d be glad to give my estimate if you would be willing to do some of the legwork of data lookup. Please see post #235 for what is needed.
@WRUAustin
yea!..everytime you post those NJ predictions my wig flips!
Still holding on to a 223 cutoff!
Thinking positive but it is good to be informed.
Thanks again! 8-}
Predictions for Texas’ NMSQT cutoff?