Last year, numbers didn’t start trickling out until September 1st…
Yeah, I’m hoping for some info soon. Two years ago our school waited until Sept 19 before notifying us, and things were due October 8. We’re going to be on an international trip for almost that entire time this year and if we need to scramble that’s gonna be challenging.
I met with D’s new GC recently (I won’t even go into her senior schedules issues!) but I did remind her that her credit by exam for Geometry was taken in 8th grade and should not be reported for National Merit (it’s the only grade she’s ever made below an A and there were extenuating circumstances) I’m sure she has a clue and will let us know as soon as she hears anything.
It’s so cool to see this process starting again! Welcome to the land of interminable waits and agonizing silence from NMSC. But they will send notification in due time, rest assured.
@3scoutsmom, I didn’t realize you could withhold grades. Our school has a program that doesn’t allow any changes once finalized. It was stressed to us when we moved from middle school to high school. We were asked if we wanted the math and foreign language grades pulled for high school. D16 had an A- in algebra and they let us know it would be part of her school record. Hope it works for her.
Why is the senior year schedules so difficult? So hard to get the classes wanted and needed as they are only offered once. Glad when this year is in the books, I think.
@Hope2achieve see #5
http://www.nationalmerit.org/Merit_R&I_Leaflet.pdf
For National Merit the school is only asked to report grades 9th - 12th they do not actually send the entire transcript. My daughter’s official transcript is a little confusing. All classes are listed by the school year but are also marked with a code to indicate what type of class, mostly used to figure GPA, each class can only have one code.
D16 took both Algebra and Geometry while she was home schooled in middle school. Both are listed as being taken in the 2011/2012 school year (when she was in 8th grade). Algebra is coded as ‘taken in middle school’ but Geometry is coded as ‘credit by exam’ I was making sure the new GC understood that both classes were in 8th grade and that she should look at the year and not just the code when reporting grades for National Merit since National Merit does not want grades for classes before high school.
Have the predictions been fairly accurate in the past?
For the past few years most states have only varied slightly the class of 2012 had a bit of shock when the historic score in TX jumped four points so you never know.
I have a 218 in TX. Fingers crossed I make the cutoff this year.
you asked if the predictions have been fairly accurate in the past. This is the first year that I have done any linear regressions (predictions if you will). For each state that I have done this year, I have calculated what the prediction would have been last year (excluding last year’s result from the linear regression of course). Overall the results have been good. Last year’s results have now been incorporated in the data set giving us one extra point. As I have calculated more states data, I have added a few improvements along the way. The two main ones have been incorporating the actual junior class high school enrollment numbers for the state in question (when I can locate the data) and then decreasing the weighting of the math scores. I do this for states where there are a larger number of high scoring math students (75-80 range) than there are for the other subject areas. This has improved the goodness of fit for the correlations. I think there are a significant number of students who score really well on math, but not the other 2 subject areas and thus do not make the cutoff.
The Texas linear regression is of very good quality (high R2 value or goodness of fit). It would indicate that the likely cutoff score for Texas this year will be 218. I wouldn’t say that 218 is safe, but I would say that 218 is a likely cutoff. Good luck.
@wruaustin you have impressed us all with your diligence!
I bet your predictions will be spot on! Be sure to update us with how close your predictions are when the cutoffs come out!
@WRUAustin I hope you’re write about Texas being 218!! Fingers crossed!! 
Thanks for running these predictions.
I apologize to anyone who relied on the Missouri cutoff score (see post 463-464). I provided an incorrect number. For 2013 -2014, the test takers achieving the 75-80 score range for writing was 117, not 139. I inadvertently copied the 139 from the reading section. This mistake resulted in a slight underestimation of this year’s cutoff (I estimate maybe a half of a point), but don’t rely on what I say because I don’t want to mislead anyone a second time.
A little more information on Missouri scores:
The total number of high scorers (75-80) for the three sections was relatively flat between this year (509) and last year (499). However, the test takers achieving the 70-74 range increased by 100 year over year (1380 versus 1280).
The cutoff was 209 last year which was a drop of four points from the year before.
With the slight increases in scores this year, I am predicting the cutoff to rise to 210 or 211.
I scored a 215 and Missouri has never been above 214 so I am safe unless there is an epic statistical anomaly.
I believe that the first official notifications about NMSF status came in around Sept. 2nd, and it was homeschool principals that were the first to report. So…good luck to everyone and the wait will be over soon!
Thank you for the correction. The change in the result is slight. The prediction went from 209.5 to 209.6 for Missouri. So, it is a tossup as to whether the most likely is 209 or 210 for the cutoff score this year.
I think your 215 is very safe.
Can someone please predict the Michigan cutoff using the methods mentioned above? I have a 210 and am really worried that the cutoff may go up.
Looks like it is predicted to be 210. You might just get it.
See post #401 for the Michigan prediction for this year courtesy of WRUAustin
Does anyone know the predicted NJ cutoff? Idk how to read all those numbers and stats on previous pages