National Merit Cutoff Predictions Class of 2017

@SUZYQ7 Has your student taken the released tests on Khan? How do the scores compare?

Here is an interesting read: http://mytutor.com/are-new-psat-scores-really-higher-than-old-psat-scores/

The PSAT Total Score is about 5 points higher for National vs User.

If GCs would use the User numbers instead of the National numbers when referencing their students, I don’t think we will get so many “too many kids in 99%” comments.

@suzyQ7 “why would the CB do this?”

If you look at the total number of students taking the SAT over the past few decades, you will notice a good rate of increase from year to year until a few years ago. The last few years, the number of students taking the SAT has remained flat. Probably one reason for this is that more students are taking the ACT. There could be other reasons as well. In any case, College Board’s main goal seems to be to INCREASE THE NUMBER OF PEOPLE TAKING THE SAT. To do this, it has a whole new initiative: SAT School Day. SAT School Day is a program designed to “allow” (or force) people who would not usually take the test to take it: poor people, minorities, people who might not plan to go to college. SAT School Day is marketed as “opening opportunities” to underprivileged students because taking the SAT supposedly puts them in the position to apply to (and even attend) college. For example, this year New York City is going to foot the bill for SAT School Day at public schools, so that every public school kid can take the SAT without paying for it, registering, traveling to a test center, etc.

Of course, with SAT School Day, we also get PSAT School Day, so that the new recruits can get ready for the real thing.

SAT School Day means $$$$ for College Board. The millions of kids who usually do not take the SAT are a gold mine of new test-takers. NMS is PEANUTS in comparison.

Of course, SAT School Day, and all those under-privileged public school students taking the SAT, mean that CB has to write a test that is suited to the new population and the new aim of the SAT: testing college-readiness (including for public and community college). In 2005, the analogies were ditched as too hard and “not related to the real world” in favor of sentence completions. Now the sentence completions have also been ditched as “not related to the real world.” You could read this as “not related to the world of the students we would like to get to take our test”.

You can’t test excellence and readiness well with the same test. CB has chosen to follow the money.

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@mnpapa29 MN with its previous SI of 214 is about as “mid” as you can get and using the preliminary concordance tables (which I realize can be problematic) I arrived at a range of 213 - 218 with a mean/median of 215.5 and a mode of 215. I might be mistaken in what I believe were appropriate combinations of test scores to come up with that 214 in the first place, but assuming that I WAS correct I really can’t see how this year’s cut-off could be higher than 218. Unless the concordance tables are drastically revised following the SAT in the spring.

Did you use a different method to arrive at 222 for the mid-range?

Interesting concordance table from my tutor - it would be helpful to see SI as compared to ACT as our daughter did much better on the September 2015 ACT (34 - 36 Reading, 35 English, 35 Science, 30 Math and Writing 36) than the PSAT 1440/219 in October 2015 or 215 in October 2104. Moving on


Just came across this. John Hopkins has run a program for years for the very brightest students, that required a 700 on either section of the SAT prior to the age of 13 for admission. Here is what they have to say at the moment in regard to the new SAT.

“Note: The College Board will launch a redesigned SAT on March 5, 2016. Students who hope to qualify for SET during the 2015-16 academic year should take the SAT using the current version no later than January 2016. We will not have sufficient data to determine requirements for SET eligibility until several months after the new test is introduced.”

http://cty.jhu.edu/set/eligibility/

As for how this ties into the current PSAT, I suspect that College Board is just as confused as we are (perhaps more so, LOL!)

@DoyleB Where did you find the percentile tables for last year? We’re in TX
trying to find those tables.

2014:
http://www.bernardsboe.com/UserFiles/Servers/Server_3096886/File/Jill%20Shadis/Ridge%20Counseling/Standardized%20Testing/Understanding%202014%20PSAT-NMSQT%20Scores.pdf

2013:
http://phs.princetonk12.org/guidance/Spotlight/S03A7EC5E-03A7ECF9.1/understanding-psat-nmsqt-scores.pdf

2012:
http://www.nisdtx.org/cms/lib/TX21000351/Centricity/Domain/146/Understanding%20PSAT%20scores.pdf

So, in summary, we have the following:

  1. First, we were going by concordance tables, but later learned that the concordance table were off and would be revised. But, most people felt that that the numbers derived were still decent/on track. Testmasters numbers along with people on CC were a good approximation of this theory.
  2. Then, the 2015 understanding your scores came out. Because the previous years' cutoffs tied into these reports, we were all relieved because the numbers were higher the the sliding scale (just subtract 12), but lower than testmasters.
  3. Then applerouth published his research, and we decided that every student went to the Oprah show and was given a 99% for showing up. This was backed up with anecdotal evidence from various posters about how so many students at their school score "really high".

Based on this, I don’t have predictions, but a couple of comments.

  1. Applerouth's article is great. His research is sound. But, the real question (for us, not him) is not how many of the kids in his study were in the top 1%, but how many were in the top 1% in prior years. If you read his article carefully, he says that he has 95 NMSF hopefuls (because they scored 205 or greater), but that once he concorded that number went down to around 30, which was the expected number. The gcs would have known that the kids who scored right around the 99th percentile would not have made it anyway. So, the question is was the number of kids who scored in the top 1% (greater than 205) higher than the previous year. GCs have the historical number of NMSFs and where they need to score on the percentile chart in their "back pocket", but do they keep track of those kids who score in the 99th percentile but fall short of the cutoff. If my child had scored a 207, I would have decided we could forget about NMSF because our cutoff is normally in the high 99th percentile.
  2. Another meaningful analysis from Applerouth would have been how many kids are in the 99.5+ percentile and if the gcs knew about how many kids were in that range in prior years, if those numbers matched up.
  3. My kids' class is around 650 kids. They only know of about 8 scores of 214 or higher. We normally have 15-18 NMFs. They did not poll the whole school, but the scores range for the kids they do know are from 214-226. So they haven't heard of any perfect scores, and not everyone that they spoke to scored in the high 220s. The kids in this small sample are pretty smart. (When the names were mentioned, I didn't say, "Really?".) They know a few other scores, but none of those kids were in this range. There were other younger (sophomore) kids also really smart, and none of them score in the 1400s.
  4. One point to think about. Currently, how do you know if you have a good SAT score? Isn't 2200 or 2250 the "golden child"? Doesn't that correspond to the underlying PSAT numbers? Doesn't that correspond to the understanding your scores?

So, now we have two camps again:

  1. The SI numbers can NOT be right, at all.
  2. The ramifications of issuing a score report that is not correct would not be good. (Meaning the SIs might be close on the understanding your scores page.)

Just keep in mind that the percentile tables published in the 2014 report, which talks about kids who tested in 2014 (class of 2016), is actually the data from kids who tested in 2013 (class of 2015). I don’t know that percentiles for the actual class of 2016 were ever published?

@micgeaux, this anecdotal data makes more sense as a Junior year class of 650 is a good data set. Can I ask what SI cutoff score applied to the 15-18 NMSF’s in your sample from 2014?

I noticed the 2015 understanding your scores lists an SI Mean of 468. Seems odd?

@chembiodad 2014 cutoff score = 220

Applerouth’s article suggested that he had results that made sense using the concordance tables. In addition to reducing his pool of possible NMSFs to a reasonable number, he related the anecdote of the GC with the previous average on the old test of 180, and the average on the new test of 187. Concordance tables equated those two, which is interesting.

Notice, however, that this year’s 187 is 91%, and last year’s 180 is 88%. Which once again suggests that this year’s SI table is some sort of “national representative sample” like what is used in one of the total score percentiles, and is not based on actual test takers.

Testmasters numbers using the concordance tables aren’t a bad guess, as is the strategy of using concordance and comparing with last year. As shown in testmasters, using concordance, last year’s curve and this year’s curve intersect at an SI of approximately 216. Above that, the scores might come down slightly. Below that, they come up (perhaps more than slightly). This also helps with the somewhat political issue of why some states cutoffs are so much higher than others- this compresses the difference between the high and low cutoff states. Suddenly there’s not as many “We’re moving to Wyoming or West Virginia” articles being posted.

@micgeaux, thx. And only 8 that are above 214 on the 2015 test as compared to the 15-18 that were above 220 on the 2014 test? Is the 8 a good number or just what you’ve heard so far?

If only a sample, do you believe that the number of NMSF’s could double or even quadruple unless the cutoff scores were proportionally increased, say to 218 or higher, as that is what much of the CC chatter is pointing to? Or do you believe that the cutoff is proportionally reduced in order to capture a similar 15-18 NMSF’s assuming it’s an easier test, say to a 214 as you referenced - understanding that at this point without SI concordance tables we are just guessing.

My high school has a junior class of around 500 kids, and every year there are only about 1-2 NMSF. There are very few smart kids at my school since it’s in a small town in the middle of nowhere. This year, I haven’t met anyone that has scored over a 200 other than me, and it is safe to assume no one else will. Thus, students at my school didn’t find the PSAT easier at all. Rather, some kids thought the math section was “impossible”. In conclusion, I don’t understand how the lower states would have higher cutoffs since kids did worse on the new PSAT in my area.

@Gandhi21, thx as this is similar to what @micgeaux was reporting. And most importantly - well done!!

@chembiodad This is just a wild guess. No, I don’t think the number would quadruple, but the 8 is based on a VERY VERY VERY small sample. So, there might be 15 more out there. I really don’t know.

We are focused on the top 1%. Maybe we should focus on whether the numbers make sense for an average SAT score at our school. I think our average was around 500 per sections or 1500 total. As someone else said, there are way more kids in that pool that college admissions officers would have to figure out whether they are ready for college.

@Gandhi21 Could you tell us what area you are from? And whether the Common Core is followed at your school?

@Ghandi21 Thanks for the information. and remember, small towns in the middle of nowhere generate adults who change the world every day. If you scored above a 200 while not having the same educational opportunity of so many others, you should be quite proud of yourself. Well done.