I have 2 or 3 variations. When I can easily find the public school junior year enrollments for years 2008-2009 through 2014-2015, I use those numbers and they typically give me the best fits. (I was able to find these easily for VA). I couldn’t find them easily for NE. In those cases, I use both the number of people taking the tests and also (usually more accurately) I look at the average state population growth. The first method yields a number of 209. The second one yields a number of 208 (207.7). Though it is less conservative, my best guess is 208 for NE. Good luck.
I forgot to mention that your daughter got a rocking good ACT score. She should get some really good opportunities in spite of likely missing out on NMSF.
I don’t think anyone has calculated Arizona yet. If I am going to do it, I need the 75-80 numbers for each of the 3 sections and total number of test takers for each year from 2008-2009 until now using these reports: http://research.collegeboard.org/programs/psat/data/cb-jr/archived/2013
The cutoff numbers from post #92 for that State are also required. I can do an even better calculation if you find out the public school junior class enrollment numbers for each of those years as well. In some states this is readily available through googling. In other states, it is not so easy.
The predictions for Missouri cutoff are coming in at 209.5. Overall the numbers look a bit weaker for this year than last, so I would guess that 209 would be the more likely number. Last year the model would have predicted 210 and it was 209. Good luck.
The goodness of fit (R2) value is low for Arizona, so it is a bit hard to pin down, but what seems pretty clear is that the numbers are strong for this year. The model would have predicted 212.4 for last year and it turned out to be 213. For this year, it is indicating 214.5 so 214 or 215 (new high) are my best guesses. I haven’t seen many, if any, new highs for the states I have calculated (relying on my memory), so AZ is bucking the trend. Perhaps new educational initiatives showing some results??? Good luck.
Exact cut offs are never officially released. In early September people start posting their state and score and if their name was on the list sent to their principle for eligibility verification. Usually homeschoolers are the first to post.
We were notified last year by our principal on September 3rd. We were already fairly certain based on someone in state sharing their homeschool letter a day or two prior. NMS headquarters claimed the letters went out August 26th, but it wasn’t your typical first class rate/speed, probably more of a bulk mailing. You won’t get a letter at your home unless you home school. However, if someone posts that they got a letter with a 214 in your state, and you have 215, feel free to celebrate.
For WI the data last year would have predicted a 208.4 and it turned out to be 208. For this year, the correlation would indicate a cutoff of 207.7 so 208 would be my best guess.
In a nutshell, it comes out looking like it will be 210 for Kentucky this year, possibly 209 but less likely, unless there is some huge external factor affecting what percentile they use, whether it’s different from 96th percentile or what else might move the needle.
I would be glad to share my Excel plot and trendline if anyone is interested. I used the mean of the 9 values and linear regression on them.
How come they swing all over the place like that from year to year? Does the difficulty of the test vary? Do they mess with the allocation among states? If a state brings on a law where it’s mandatory for all HS juniors to take it (like ours), does that bump the results down for that state?
While the SAT board tries their best to make the test of consistent difficulty, I’m sure that it isn’t completely achievable.
From what I understand the cutoff scores are set such that the number of students above the cutoff is equal to 1% of the total number of high school juniors for that state. Note that this is for the total number of high school juniors and not the number taking the psat test.
If a state passes a law that forces all juniors to take the test, I suppose that it could result in additional high scoring students. If that is the case, then the cutoff would potentially be higher for that year. But, it would then become the normal situation for future years. However, it is also likely that most of the high scoring students would have likely taken the test without the compulsion of the state. So, the actual change would likely be small.
I have done some linear regressions as well. Smaller states tend to have more variations in the cutoff numbers and the correlations are typically not as good as with larger states. When correlating it works best to correlation against the number of public school juniors if you can find that number. My calculation for KY was also 210, BTW.
