@dallaspiano So proud of you – you can catch up on this later – good luck on your SAT – you have ALL OF US CHEERING FOR YOU! 
OK - sign off for now …
Now that the collegeboard site is finally up, you can go print the SAT ticket, charge your calculator and sharpen pencils! Students, all sign off!
Great idea @payn4ward – good luck to all the students taking the SAT - sorry to those who are getting plans altered due to the impending East Coast Snow Storm.
@dallaspiano - just FYI…holding a 2015 PSAT score report with a 1410 TS and 99% national percentile and a 214 SI. So 1430 is not the lowest 99%ile! 
@Pickmen - my simulation is essentially making separate projections based on each school individually. So yes, based on one school, it would project a 1396 cutoff, while based on another, it would project 1510. So you could argue this isn’t that helpful… 
Also note, my methodology is clearly flawed in that it assumes a normal distribution - which might be wrong for both the top of the curve and for special high-performing schools. And you have to guess how many NMSF come out of each school. Also, the fact that the different schools yield different numbers won’t give anyone the warm fuzzies…
:shrug:
@micgeaux - I updated my other post to include cutoffs if you double the NMSF from each school.
It doesn’t work that way. There is not a one-for-one PSAT score alignment to SI. Two kids may have identical PSAT scores, but the kid that scored higher on the CR and W sections will have a higher SI than the kid who scored higher on the M section.
Yes, you’re right, I’m glossing over the fact that a total score doesn’t map one-to-one to SI.
So when I said 1396 - 1510, I’m being too specific…
Presumably everyone on here knows that the cutoffs are actually in terms of SI. But if you do have a total score guess, it’s not hard to go from that to an SI guess. Say a 1450 would likely go to 740 M / 710V (high scorers tend to do better on math) and get a 216.
I am from Georgia. Based on Cobb County’s scores, what do you think the NMSF cutoff SI would be? I agree that Walton High probably has 18 to 20 NMSF again. There are other top performing schools like Northview, Chattahoochee, Alpharetta High, Johns Creek, Westminster, Wheeler, and GSMST. I believe the SI cutoff for GA is going to be at least 220.
@suzyQ7 , yes check the college board site. More 10th graders than 11th graders took the PSAT in recent years. I assumed from the high number of sophomores testing that most schools were like ours requiring both sophomores and juniors to take it. But there are fewer juniors because of students dropping out.
@mathyone I don’t think that “juniors dropping out” is a reason for more sophomores taking the PSAT than juniors. Most Americans have no idea about testing in general and PSAT/National Merit in particular. A lot of states use the PSAT as AP placement predictor and a secondary check against their own state testing, being that the Common Core-aligned PARCC or decade-old NCLB state testing. At school level it might help the guidance counselors to allow students into APs; at state level it might validate newly developed alternatives to the PARCC.
If PSAT is state-mandated for 10th grade, it is paid by the state and, most often, parents don’t even know about it. Students could opt out, if they wanted, but hey, it’s a free prep and trial for the old/new SAT.
To give you an example: At my child’s school (inner city, 60 percent on free/reduced lunch, over 2000 students, non-competitive) all 10th graders take the PSAT by state mandate. Only 10 or 12 juniors and about the same amount of freshmen take it, while paying for it. The freshmen class has about 620 students, the juniors are at 500 of originally 570 or so. What does that mean for the juniors? About two percent taking the PSAT for either practice purposes or NHRP or NMSF? And why? Because it’s not a “thing.” The Guidance Department doesn’t inform about National Merit/Hispanic Scholar/Achievement Scholar (in the olden days, now discontinued) and the school does not encourage juniors to take the test for that purpose. It is not a priority for the school and very few parents know about the program or the possible scholarship perks. There is not enough room in the school to have 550 or so mandatory sophomores taking it. Sticking 12 juniors and 12 freshmen in a spare closet to take it, is doable but no priority is given to juniors. Registration for juniors and freshmen opens up the same day. Once the 25 or maybe even 2 x 25 spots are filled, that’s it. No legal recourse, no nothing … Nobody knows about it.
If I would mention College Confidential to my child’s guidance counselor or any fellow junior parent, they would look at me as if I were a lunatic … same for National Merit etc. And that with a university in state that gives full rides to NMSF!
I agree this is idiotic. If a school is only going to test one grade level that should be juniors. But there are fewer juniors than sophomores due to dropouts so the many schools which test both grades will post slightly fewer junior grades.
That’s probably true, @mathyone, for states that pay for 10th and 11th grade to take the PSAT. And there is attrition from 9th to 10th and from 10th to 11th grade. In my experience, however, the biggest loss occurs from 11th to 12th grade. There always is the GED or early graduation due to middle school HS credits or to 18 credit HS diploma programs. Our smallest classes in the county are always the senior classes … Starting at 550 and ending at 200 less.
What I have learned on these PSAT threads in the past few days is that there is a huge variety from state to state and school to school. Recent threads talked about schools in Houston and Marietta, GA that produce large numbers of NMSF. Even with all the odds at my child’s school, there are always 4 or 5 NMSF which speaks to the very few informed parents and some absolutely amazing teachers who DON’T teach to the test while equipping their students with amazing critical reading and, at least, enough math skills to make the cut.
The local newspaper always announces the semi-finalists and usually three out five high schools have between 4 and 5 candidates. Interestingly, the IB program never has any and another low-performing school either. It’s about priorities for - mostly - parents who are familiar with what NMSF can do in terms of opening doors and providing scholarships/full rides.
My child did well in the recent PSAT but with the new cut-offs we will not know until September. There was only one person out of the many parents I know I could mention this to because her son had done well the year prior and is a 2016 NMSF. It’s just not a thing in our area and probably not in most of my state.
@TallyMom2017 …I agree with you. I have found that in our school (Texas) there has only been 1 person get com mended 2 years ago. When I asked the GC about helping us she said that she has NEVER had a student get NMSF…really? I know we have some pretty smart students come through our school in past years. Our school offers dual credit college courses and tons of students take advantage of that program but not the PSAT. I know some student don’t want to spend the money and others think it is just stupid. We don’t seem to have a high drop out rate however students are not informed about the PSAT and the benefits it can have. My son is boarder line with a 221…we are hoping that the cutoff stays at 220 like last year for Texas or goes down a point or 2.
@Tgirlfriend are there other kids in your sons school that are in the 220 and up range THIS YEAR?
@suzyQ7 …no ma’am. The next closest to him is a SI 202. Everything else we have heard was way lower than even the 202. These students are the ones in the AP classes and dual credit classes. My son told me that the questions he missed on the Math section were just stupid mistakes. His score was 38…37…35.5.
Jed Applerouth discusses the inflated percentiles (and other PSAT/SAT/ACT items) on the radio:
@DoyleB thank you for the link…very informative! Actually, what Jed said is what I was thinking all along even before I was on these forums. Of course, I’m only talking about my daughter’s case as I can’t speak for anyone else. When she first practiced for the new PSAT via Khan Academy, I was worried about how much reading was involved and how long passages were. Every section had long passages, even in the math section. I was thinking that her brain would be exhausted just because of all the readings. She’s also more a math/science person than verbal. Also, all her 5 wrongs in math was in the calculator section…again this is attributable to all the readings.
So, even there are a lot of high scores reported on CC, I’m still wondering how many people stumbled due to all the readings involved?
Did you notice that at the bottom of that page there was a link to an article about how 1 in 5 of Atlanta’s NMSF (I think 86 in total) did test prep through Applerouth? 20% is a pretty significant #. I have wondered about all of the test prep comments (my dd took the practice test and a couple of the released SATs.) Perhaps way more kids are doing serious test prep than I imagined. (Well, not exactly. I pictured individuals heavily engaged in test prep. But not 20% of the top scorers in a single area.)