National Merit Cutoff Predictions Class of 2017

Texas cutoff predictions?

I talked with the GC at my daughters school today. The school typically has 1 or 2 National Merit Scholar Semifinalists, and historically our state typically needs just a tad below a 99th percentile national score to qualify. The GC said if he use the 99th percentile selection index he would have over 10 qualifiers this year. This fact and reading / researching this thread leads me to believe that the percentiles shown on the CB site are NOT based on the November 2015 test takers.

Is it fair to say that the problems with the SI percentile reported by CB relate mostly to the 99th percentile cutoff and not to the higher scores?

@Tgirlfriend - No one knows but a test prep company came up with some predictions that appear reasonable, though “no assurances” can be given: http://collegeadmissions.testmasters.com/update-psat-scores-cut-national-merit-2016/
Says 217 for Texas. But blogs like this raise more questions than they answer: https://www.■■■■■■■■■■■■■■/blog/2016/01/14/can-you-trust-your-psat-score/
We’ll know more most likely in April when the commended cut off becomes known but nothing definitive till September. Hang in there.

I really hope the CA cut-off is 217, not 219 :p.

@idahohusker It doesn’t mean that the percentiles shown on the CB site are NOT based on the November 2015 test takers, it might mean that this test was easier and the kids that would have been 95, 96, 97% last year, are probably 99% this year. Which means that the cutoffs will probably be higher for most states - from a % perspective.

And don’t they appear to be higher? Commended last year was 202/240 (Commended is 99%tile and up, nationally right? ). If commended this year is 205/228 (first start of 99% on the below chart), then that IS a higher cutoff right?

https://collegereadiness.collegeboard.org/pdf/2015-psat-nmsqt-understanding-scores.pdf

The question is (at least for me) is how many more kids will be a the very tippity top than last year and how much higher that top cutoff will be. If my kid’s score is 221 (99.7% according to the last figure I saw on this site) is that high enough for the highest cutoff. Don’t know.

It seems like the ‘upper middle’ will be much more crowded this year. I think that is what testmasters was predicting. Although testmasters was predicting commended cutoff at 202- why wouldn’t we think the commended cutoff would be 205 - since that is where the 99% starts? I don’t think testmasters had this report: https://collegereadiness.collegeboard.org/pdf/2015-psat-nmsqt-understanding-scores.pdf when they put up their predictions. It would be great if they updated with the new info.

I don’t understand why the college board would publish SI percentiles that AREN’T based on the actual test takers. Concordance data I understand - it takes a significant effort to compile that data and get the numbers right. But as soon as you know the SI scores for everyone, computing the percentiles is absolutely trivial. It would literally take a few minutes. What could be the possible justification for publishing numbers based on a sample rather than the actual data?

Don’t take the above post to mean that I believe the SI percentiles are based on actual data - it’s pretty clear based on the number of high scorers that they are not. I just don’t understand why they bothered to publish bogus data when it is simple to compile and publish the actual numbers.

@doyleB - why don’t you think they are based on the actual data? The test was easier. It was designed so that more kids scored higher so they would be enticed to take the March SAT. Which totally worked in my son’s case. We cannot resist the possibility of really great SAT score, even though we HATE how the CB is handling themselves this year.

@doyleb agreed! It’s not that hard to figure out true percentiles bc they have all test takers SI numbers!

@DoyleB FYI! I talked to NMSC today & they said NOT to use concordance tables to guess at cutoffs! Those tables were designed for GC’s & sophomores to prep for their junior year PSAT!

If the test is easier, then the beginning of the 99 and 99+ range would be very high. If the data isn’t bogus, then only 1% of the test takers can be in the upper 1%. When people are looking at the published tables, far more than 1% of the kids have SIs that the table says are in the 99th percentile. Jed Applerouth’s blog post is a good example - when schools are reporting that, according to the tables, 20-40% of their students tested in the upper 1%, that means the published table is bogus. And the college board knows it. So I don’t understand why they published the data.

@suzyQ7 Commended limit is top 3% of test takers (50,000/1.5 Million). If the percentile charts are right, there are 2 percent of the kids who scored between 200 - 204 (97 & 98 percentile). Last year the selection index had scores between 202 - 212 for the 97th and 98th percentile. Maybe the new test design and SI calculation evens the playing field enough that schools that had lots of kids just under the cut off before now have more of a chance. Time will tell

You don’t need to use the concordance tables to compute the cutoffs. If the SI percentiles tables are correct, you could make pretty accurate guesses based on that. If your state’s cutoff last year was in the upper 98 percentile bands, it is likely to be there this year. If your state’s cutoff last year was in the middle of the 99+ bands, it is probably there this year. We have the percentile tables from last year, and we know last year’s cutoffs. But we have bogus SI tables this year, so the cutoff is hard to predict.

OK, so I had posted some misinformation
 commended is not top 1%, commended is some arbitrary cutoff allocating 34,000 of the top 50,000 scorers in the country to be commended.

Looking at last year, top 99% started at 213/240. This year, 99% starts at 205/228. Does this tell us anything?

How do you know this:

“When people are looking at the published tables, far more than 1% of the kids have SIs that the table says are in the 99th percentile”

I think that school GCs can access reports that show a student’s SI percentile as compared to the school & to the state - perhaps a few of us can ask about that and how it compares to what has been reported on CC.

I could potentially report some data on number of 99%ile scorers from my school, but is it appropriate to ask a GC how many kids at my school scored in a certain range? Would she be allowed to give a student that type of information?

It could be very useful knowledge because my school consistently gets 20-30 NMSFs. In my state, barely clearing 99th %ile is typically adequate to make NMSF. For example, if 45 kids got 99th %ile SI, then we would have some decent evidence that the SI %iles are inaccurate.

@studious99 I’m still having trouble understanding that -but you guys are way better at stats than I am. Why would 45 kids in your school having 99th% mean that the % are wrong? Just because last year there were 20-30? What if EVERYONE in your school scored a 226? Wouldn’t they all be in the 99th %.? I truly don’t get it.

There are a bunch of decimals between 99.0 and 99.9% Couldn’t all 45 kids in your school have fallen in that range?

suzy - GCs all over the country are reporting that, according to the tables, their kids got a lot smarter this year. Call your school’s GC and ask them how many students they had in the top 2 or 3 percent last year, and how many they have this year. Then you can decide.

They didn’t get smarter, the test is easier