- because it’s an opinion and not everyone needs to agree so it’s okay that you don’t understand why someone would have that position
2) because it’s the NMSC’s contest and since we don’t know how they decide which of the semi-finalists will become finalists, it’s all just a guess. Again, no right or wrong answers. Unless, of course, someone knows the cut-offs then I’m happy to concede that there are right/ wrong answers and they can spare us all the wait and post them now.
Actually, it’s well-known how a NMSF becomes a finalist. You need a confirming SAT score (which was confirmed by the National Merit office http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/national-merit-scholarships/994755-sat-score-needed-to-confirm-psat.html ), and then I’ve forgotten if the junior / US college stuff is the requirements for NMSF or finalist, but obviously you need that too to be a finalist.
@paveyourpath I understand that it’s an opinion. I’m not asking about what NMSC will do - we know what they do. I’m asking about people’s personal opinions. Several posters here (including you in post 1237) seem to have the opinion that when two kids have the same SI, the one with that higher math score is more deserving. I’m just curious about your reasoning as to why. My question has nothing to do with who will be a NMSF.
@dallaspiano The NMSF is decided exclusively on the basis of SI. The out of 1520 score is only used so test takers can roughly estimate their SAT score will be.
That’s why I think all the talk of concordance tables is misplaced.
@gusmahler I think I must have missed some of the concordance table discussions on this and other threads. But the recently released PSAT concordance tables on the last page allows you to concord not total scores but SI’s from 2015 to 2014. That would be relevant, right?
@DoyleB “All the scores from 228-240 have been pulled down below 228, but at the same time low scores have been raised”
While the top score is 12 less than the old top score, the lowest possible score is 12 less than the old lowest score
@gusmahler I understand that the lowest possible score has also gone down by 12. But hard data we’ve received from the scores posted suggests that the average score has NOT gone down by 12. Indeed, Walton high school had an average SI two years ago of 166.3, and this year that average was 180.6. Their average went up substantially, while the max score declined by 12 points. Many more students are compressed into the bins at the top.
It would be nicer to have statewide data to compare, as opposed to one school. We have GA statewide for this year. I’ll look for previous years and see what it shows.
@thshadow Is it well known how one becomes a finalist or is it well known the criteria considered for one to become a finalist? My understanding is NMSC does not publish what the confirming score is. Is that not the case? While we know what the criteria to become a finalist is (confirming SAT score, grades, recommendation of your school administration) what I was getting at is we don’t have a guaranteed criteria that is published. In my opinion, it is still subjective but since the 16K is reduced to 15K, most will make it to a finalist and not really a big deal. In contrast, there are scholarships where you know up front that require a specific ACT or SAT score combined with a specific GPA. $7500 if your ACT score is a 33 with a 3.8 GPA but if you have an ACT of 34 with a 3.8 you get $15K. Does anyone know where NMSC publishes the confirming SAT score?
Georgia statewide data for 11th graders this year shows an average ERW of 512 and average math of 505, for an average SI of (512*2 + 505)/10 = 152.9
Last year GA averages for Reading was 48.8, Math was 49.5, and Writing was 47.8, for an average SI of 48.8+49.5+47.8 = 146.1
So, the top possible score went down by 12 points, and GA’s average SI went up by almost 7.
@DoyleB My thought was based solely on numbers (1500 being higher than 1490). I hadn’t considered what causes a higher score and which sections would be viewed as giving more weight to one section over the other. No idea what will come into play but if they end up in a situation where they are at 15,005 kids and they are determined to stick them into 15K slots, it is plausible that they are going to find various ways to determine which 5 go including, in my opinion, using the TS as a deciding factor. Who knows. It’s all just speculation.
@DoyleB Perhaps I have wrong data - this http://www.cobbk12.org/news/2016/PSAT2015.pdf
says (in Table 2) that Walton has ave. score of 1207 if I understand it correctly - that is about 173 SI, isn’t it? https://collegereadiness.collegeboard.org/pdf/psat-nmsqt-preliminary-concordance-tables-2015.pdf I dont have the previous years’ data. An ave. of 1453 (as per Table 3) for top 100 scorers though seems pretty high.
Walton’s average is 1207 = 599 ERW and 608 math. SI can be computed directly from the ERW and Math scores as (ERW2 + Math)/10, and concordance tables don’t come into play. (5992 + 608)/10 = 180.6
The concordance tables attempt to deflate this year’s inflated numbers back to last year’s numbers - so they yield a lower value. For this particular discussion, I’m interested in the absolute number for this year, and how it relates to last year’s absolute number - not how the numbers concord to one another.
@CA1543 It is interesting, however, that the concordance tables would reduce this year’s average SI for Walton by 7 points (from 180 to 173). I showed a few posts earlier that this year’s GA statewide average is 7 points higher than last year’s. If concordance would make this year’s average equal to last year’s average, that’s another data point that shows the concordance tables have value.
@DoyleB @paveyourpath This is my opinion… I kind of agree with paveyourpath because if there is a tie, and if they don’t break the tie, they may be way way over the 16,000. It’s logical to use another criteria and the one obvious to me is TS. DoyleB said then that means they give math more weight… This is my thought…do schools offer 2 english classes (reading separate from writing) and 1 math class? Or do they offer 2 classes? English covers reading and writing and math is math…just my thought.
It’s NMSC’s money so at the end of the day, they have the final decision who they want to award scholarships to.
Actually, if you look at graduation requirements - English, History, Foreign Language, Science, Math, etc - I would argue there is far more critical reading and writing than there is math in the curriculum.
@paveyourpath No, it is not possible that they will use Total Score as a tiebreaker in order to determine the 16K SF’s. Because, the document describing the contest clearly says the SFs are based on top SI scorers. If 2 students have the same SI, they are the same, and would both make SF:
“NMSC then arranges the SELECTION INDEX scores of all National Merit Program participants within a state in descending order. The score at which a state’s allocation is most closely filled becomes the Semifinalist qualifying score. Entrants with a Selection Index at or above the qualifying score are named Semifinalist”
If you mean they would use TS to decide Finalist, I don’t think that is possible either. PSAT scores are not a factor in moving from SF to Finalist. As you mentioned, “confirming SAT score, grades, recommendation of your school administration” are the factors. They have a lot of flexibility when cutting SF to Finalists - this is where I believe they can easily reduce down to 15K by changing what has been done in the past…since nowhere does NMC specify that 1 C or 2 Cs or 3 Cs are disqualifying… nowhere does NMS say that 1960 is the confirming SAT… Its very flexible for them in this part of the contest.
My thought is that they will go well over 16K this year (since their docs just say “about 16K, not exactly 16K”) and then cut them down to the 15K by tightening up SAT score requirements and grades. This is the where they have the greatest flexibility since the process is unknown and UNDOCUMENTED. unlike round 1 - which is clearly documented in their contest descriptions (above).
@SLparent NMS says “about 16,000” they can easily go to 16,800 or 16,700 and still be following how they have described the contest. 16K is not a ‘hard number’. They can just cut them back in the second round to the ‘about’ 15K finalist number.
Walton’s median for the top 100 scorers may be much lower than the mean.
@DoyleB let me see if I can say it in a different way… I’m NOT referring to the entire curriculum, just talking about english vs. math at school. I know my daughter’s school does not offer 2 english classes: 1 for reading AND 1 for writing. Her English class encompasses both reading comprehension as well as writing. And her math just teaches math. Everyone has to take foreign language, history, science and electives but none of that is part of the NMSF equation.
I think this is roughly the history (details may not be exactly right):
The selection index for National Merit Semifinalist qualification has doubled-weighted the verbal section(s) since before 1980, when there was just a math section and a verbal section. Boys did a bit better on the old verbal (and I think do better on crtitical reading??) than girls, but boys did/do MUCH better on math than girls. Even with the double-weighting of verbal, there were more boy NMSF than girl NMSF, but without the double-weighing, that disparity would have been much greater. After a lawsuit, a writing section, on which section girls did better than boys, was added to the PSAT and SAT, and all 3 sections of the PSAT were added together to make a SI for NMSF. This further reduced the girl/boy NMSF disparity.
http://www.fairtest.org/gender-gap-narrows-revised-psat
IThat the NM Corp would just switch this weighting willy nilly - either in determining NMSF or in determining NMF - seems very unlikely.