I have learned and improved some things along the way. It would be helpful if I could find the junior enrollment levels for NY, but I can only find some years. However, by weighting the math scores down a bit the correlation does improve. NY has very high math scores relative to the other two sections. As a result, the prediction moves down a bit and is closer to 218 than 219.
I think your son or daughter’s 220 is in good shape to make the cutoff.
@WRUAustin I was actually thinking the opposite.
I live in one of the compulsory states for ACT, and PSAT is mandatory for all students in our high school, which means you have a fair number of students taking the test who don’t have college plans. To your point, “most of the high scoring students would have likely taken the test without the compulsion of the state.”
In my estimation, adding the non-college bound students to the pool would drive the mean scores down and push the 99th percentile score down a bit as well. Thoughts?
Interesting that we concur on the 210 for KY 
Has the College Board stated a firm date by which they will notify NMSF’s and publish the cutoffs? I found a Sept 10 date but it was for 2014.
Adding below average performing test takers to the test pool will push down the average score, but that shouldn’t matter. The cutoff is based on the total number of juniors in the state and not the total number taking the test. So, adding extra students (that aren’t likely to make the cutoff) doesn’t affect the cutoff score. I hope that was clear.
If I have 1000 juniors in a state, the cutoff will be set such that the top 10 test takers make the cutoff. It doesn’t matter if 500 or 1000 students take the test, provided that the 10 top test takers were in both the 500 pool and the 1000 pool.
in regards to the “publish” date, I think you can read back a few pages in this thread for some discussion of this.
Thanks, now the top 1% and number of juniors in the state is more clear. I hadn’t caught that the number of test takers was not a factor.
Probably so, but if someone knew it off the top of their head and it kept others from having to dig through the haystack, that would be like an everyone-wins thing. If a person wanted to indicate a certain range of post numbers, that would be a start. Some of us are at work when we check these forums.
1 page back. post #473
Question for anyone:
If I have score of 219 score and the cutoff in my state is exactly 219, does that mean I qualify for semis or am I one point below?
@WRUAustin
What are the chances the New York cutoff is 220 or above? Can you give me an approximate percent chance? Any info will help. Thanks.
If you score 219 and the cutoff is 219, then you qualify.
I think your chances of making the cutoff are very good. Much better than not. I’m not going to put a percentage on it, but I think a 218 cutoff is more likely than a 220 cutoff for NY. I would say that 218 is the most likely, then 219 is nearly as likely. Good luck!
Thanks @WRUAustin that was helpful.
Yeah thanks @WRUAustin
The National Merit Scholarship Program Student Guide explains the process of picking semifinalists this way:
NMSC designates Semifinalists in the program on a
state-representational basis to ensure that academically
able young people from all parts of the United States are
included in this talent pool. Using the latest data available,
an allocation of Semifinalists is determined for each
state, based on the state’s percentage of the national total
of high school graduating seniors. For example, the number
of Semifinalists in a state that enrolls approximately
two percent of the nation’s graduating seniors would be
about 320 (2 percent of the 16,000 Semifinalists).
@4kids2graduate /All
Thanks for posting that. I looked at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Merit_Scholarship_Program and it says that the percentage the top 0.5%. So, I was incorrect about the 1% apparently.
As far as my cutoff correlations go, the exact percentage didn’t matter. I just needed to know what to use to normalize the value that I used in the correlation (not the number of test takers, but the number of students when I can find that information).
Hey guys, class of 2016 NM commended cutoff is 202, this info is brought to us thanks to some home school “principals” (aka parents), this is the forum, 1st response: http://forums.welltrainedmind.com/topic/548274-national-merit-principal-letter/
I’m gonna take their word, and good luck to all of you!
My son’s high school has it on their official calendar to recognize national merit semifinalists on September 9th with a breakfast for them and their parents. The principal will call all semifinalists to his office and notify them some time during the week before, so I’m pretty sure schools will know by September 1 or 2 who made the cut.
Has the cutoff for NMSF in OK been calculated on this forum yet?
I don’t think I have calculated the state of OK and I haven’t seen anyone else either. I would be glad to do it if you do a bit of leg work. See post 462 for the data I need. Post 465 is a good example.
WRUAustin,
I could not find the enrollment numbers but here is the rest of the data you needed:
CR / M / Wr / Students / Cut
1008-09: 67 / 62 / 63 / 7874 / 208
1009-10: 64 / 96 / 57 / 7507 / 207
1010-11: 94 / 109 /113 / 8278 / 206
1011-12: 56 / 50 / 94 / 8163 / 209
1012-13: 89 / 95 / 86 / 8075 / 206
1013-14: 74 / 102 / 59 / 7973 / 210
1014-15: 56 / 104 / 66 / 9822 / 206-
Thanks for all the information you provide here. My D scored a 208 on her PSAT, and a 34 on her ACT first time taking it. She has always wanted to go out of state, but after seeing that OU provides such a enticing package, she is considering them. I saw some other posts that give a rundown of the schools that provide packages for NMS, but I do not see any of the name schools providing packages. Do none of them provide enticing packages to scholars?
Also, if she does not make NMS with a qualifying SAT score, what kind of package can she expect for being named NMSF without the qualifying score. She is right on the border here.
BTW, she did get an e-mail from OU back in the spring commenting on her excellent PSAT score, so that MIGHT mean something???
She needs to plan to take the SAT it’s not hard to get a qualifying score. Options for NMSF are more limited than those of NMF check out this list: http://nmfscholarships.yolasite.com/
Big name schools don’t need to offer big $$ for National Merit because some many high stats kids apply there anyway. Schools are offering $$$ to National Merit kids to draw them way from the big name schools.
M D16 is a high stat kid and National Merit hopeful and OU is her top choice.
Are you in OK, or one of the states that border OK?
I sometimes wonder if OU has a decent draw of students from farther away, or if the big majority of their students are from around here.
Thanks for the data. (There was a one year shift in the cutoff scores in case anyone else references the data later). I also couldn’t find the OK public school enrollment data. Still it seems pretty clear that a 208 should make the cutoff. Last year this methodology would have predicted 206.9 and the cutoff ended up at 206. This year it is predicting 206.4. The data this year look a bit weaker or similar to last year. My best guess is 206. Good luck.
Last week my son and I visited OU. We enjoyed our visit and he could see himself there. They certainly roll out the red carpet for prospective NMSF students. He had previously been pretty locked in to TAMU, but will certainly consider OU now. He is interested in engineering. Many Texans go to OU.