@dallaspiano What do you mean by every 10,000 (national) we have 46 NMSF?
TX Juniors taking PSAT
From http://www.nationalmerit.org/annual_report.pdf, for 2014 NMSQT (page 29)
Out of 199,383 students entered NM competition, 3,311 got Commended, 1,353 got NMSF
From TS state report, http://media.collegeboard.com/digitalServices/pdf/research/2014/TX_14_05_02_01.pdf
On page 2, we had 217,323 TX juniors taking PSAT
There are a big difference between 217,323 and 199,383 ( 17940 students - so where are they)
@dallaspiano – Do you think some of the “missing” are student who do not qualify for NM competition - noncitizens etc? No idea how many take the PSAT who are not actually eligible for the competition.
@dallaspiano You are comparing different years. The national merit annual report is for Program year 2014. Look at page 28. To enter for program year 2014, you took the test in October 2012.
The state report you are linking to is for a test taken in October 2014. You need to pull up the state report for 2012.
In that case, you have 207,068 versus the 199,383. Still a difference, but much smaller.
@CA1543, idk but I tried to use that info to interpret TX Commended Cut off
Based on “Out of 199,383 students entered NM competition, 3,311 got Commended, 1,353 got NMSF”
4664 TX junior students (from 3311+1353) were in 97.66%Tile of TX Juniors NMSQT/PSAT qualifiers (out of 199,383).
To predict TX Commended cut off (2015 PSAT test takers) ==> mean SI 201 or 202 (TX Commended Cut off) since they will have to be in either high 97%Tile or low 98%Tile ranges.
Anyone - not in TX - wants to predict Commended Cut off for their states, you can use info from post #101 to interpret at your own pleasure
@gettingschooled , thank you for cautioning me
TX report 2013-2014 on juniors taking PSAT (page 1)
NM report 2014, based on 2013 PSAT result
(every page at bottom left you see 2013-2014 Annual Report)
Anyway, sometimes I got carried away with confusing graduation years, college-bound years and etc…But not this time
Thank you for reading my posts, since this is a sub-thread from @CA1543
@gettingschooled , thank you for cautioning me page 28.
This is from page 28, top right paragragh
“Commended Students
In the 2014 program, 36,948 entrants (approximately
two-thirds of high scorers) were named Commended
Students on the basis of a nationally applied qualifying
score at approximately the 96th percentile”
Page 28 of the Annual report says “In October 2012, about 1 .5 million students took the psat/ nmsqt and met participation requirements to enter the 2014 National Merit Scholarship Program.”
When you go to the archive page for state reports and select 2012, it says -" In the fall of 2012, students took the PSAT/NMSQT to help determine their level of readiness for college. The PSAT/NMSQT 2012 State Summary Reports summarize the characteristics, scores and educational plans of the Class of 2014 and Class of 2015."
The annual report should be compared to the 2012 summaries. The report is issued well after the students enroll in college which is how they publish the data on page 21.
On the summary page for the 2013 reports (the one you link to) it says-
“In the fall of 2013, students took the PSAT/NMSQT to help determine their level of readiness for college. The PSAT/NMSQT 2013 State Summary Reports summarize the characteristics, scores and educational plans of the Class of 2015 and Class of 2016.”
The annual report is published about Class of 2014 NOT the class of 2015.
@gettingschooled , thank you for cautioning me page 28.
It’s confusing? We can read the same thing but see thing in different ways
But I believe CB data ( as a true believer), CB/NMSC have all current data to use they did not need to use old 212 data.
Let it pass. Again thank you
This is not some existential exercise. Critical reading is a skill you need to develop. Of course they had more recent data but they were not reporting on recent data. They were reporting on a certain program year.
If you choose to compare data, compare the right data.
Last words. Try to prove you have a point by offending me with critical reading. Cheap shot
@gettingschooled, you don’t have reading skill and you need to develop one. And I don’t need to convince you anything.
Behave yourself as an educated one. If you do not agree, say you do not agree then ignore the rest. You do not need to put people down, and I am not your kids
And as parents, you know what will happen if you look down at your own kids
@gettingschooled, I will explain in details
“Commended Students
In the 2014 program, 36,948 entrants (approximately
two-thirds of high scorers) were named Commended
Students on the basis of a nationally applied qualifying
score at approximately the 96th percentile”
** …2014 program, 36,948 entrants… WERE NAMED COMMENDED… **
- That mean 36,948 (Commended ones) students taking PSAT in October 2013 (start of Junior Year - only Juniors will be considered for NM Competition).
- NMSC usually issued Commended Letters to students in September (start of Senior Year -when say 2014, that is September 2014)
- no need to use 2012 data
- bottom left of report say explicitly 2013-2014 Annual Report
I don’t know how to make it more clear to you. The 2013-2014 Annual Report LITERALLY says it on page 28
“In October 2012, about 1 .5 million students took the psat/ nmsqt and met participation requirements to enter the 2014 National Merit Scholarship Program . Some 50,000 students earned psat/nmsqt scores that qualified them for recognition. In the fall of 2013, these high scorers were notified that they would be designated as either Commended Students or Semifinalists.”
Annual Report 2013-2014
Program Year 2014
Test date October 2012
Fall of 2013 notification
Feb 2014 finalist notification
The program year is the year you make finalist/scholar.
I like your tone now. That’s how people respect you. Thank you
Check http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/sat-act-tests-test-preparation/1851217-the-easy-and-hard-states-for-making-nmsf.html
Comments by GMTplus7 at 01-11-2016 at 7:25 pm in SAT and ACT Tests & Test Preparation
" The data from 2013 test takers comes from the 2013/14 NMSC Annual Report (page 29).
http://www.nationalmerit.org/annual_report.pdf"
Andy says:
Your comment is awaiting moderation.
February 13, 2016 at 11:01 pm
Hi Bill and Michael
You probably know about Mean, SD and Percentile and this app
http://www.csgnetwork.com/directnormpercentile.html
Base on page 11 of 2015 PSAT (Mean = 148 and SD = 26) and SI of 219 associated with 99.68 percentile. At this percentile (99.68), we will have a total of 5518 students make it to NMSF. This year TX and CA will total NMSF of 3398 (1353+2035) at SI 219, and the rest of nation will share 2120 NMSF awards (2120 = 5518-3398). It seems IMPOSSIBLE, since TX and CA is about 23.9% population of Juniors taking 2015 SAT.
I believe you had concrete data for Houston, how do you reconcile this number?
Thank You
Re-read
http://www.examiner.com/article/will-my-child-be-a-national-merit-scholarship-finalist
"Here is an example of how the formula also works against math students."
Examples:
1430 (RW 680, M 750) = (R 35 + W 33 + M 35.5) = (35 + 33 + 35.5) * 2 = 211 SI
1420 (RW 700, M 720) = (R 35 + W 35 + M 36.0) = (35 + 35 + 36.0) * 2 = 212 SI
1420 (RW 720, M 700) = (R 36 + W 36 + M 35.0) = (36 + 36 + 35.0) * 2 = 214 SI
1410 (RW 740, M 670) = (R 37 + W 37 + M 33.5) = (37 + 37 + 33.5) * 2 = 215 SI
1400 (RW 760, M 640) = (R 38 + W 38 + M 32.0) = (38 + 38 + 32.0) * 2 = 216 SI
1390 (RW 760, M 630) = (R 38 + W 38 + M 31.5) = (38 + 38 + 31.5) * 2 = 215 SI
*** TS 1430 is higher than 1420 --- 1390, but it is lower in SI compared to those of 1420....1390
" two students living in the same state and maybe even attending the same high school with the same Total PSAT scores could easily have very different outcomes—one a merit scholar and one not."
“Once you get past all the numbers, percentiles, and projections, the real decision of who will or will not be a National Merit Semifinalist rests in the hands of NMSC corporate executives who largely operate behind closed doors. Now may be an opportunity for them to reconsider how the program works and rethink state cut scores.”
Why DC has the highest cut off NMSF?
“And for the record, each state has a different cutoff. As luck would have it, DC’s cutoff is usually the highest in the country. To add insult to injury, most DC scholarship winners don’t attend public schools or even live in the District. They attend expensive private schools and commute from the suburbs.”
Only rich parents can afford that tuition, and most of rich parents can afford additional test-prep costs
“In DC, this means that nearly all winners attend private high school.”
It will change this year, I think due to
"Because of its misuse of PSAT scores—which correlate very strongly with household income—as the sole criterion to select Semifinalists, National Merit guarantees that its awards will PREDOMINANTLY go to children who LEAST NEED scholarship assistance to attend college,” said Bob Schaeffer, public education director for the National Center for Fair and Open Testing.
What do you say NMSQT co.? Favor the rich and affordable rich families?
Base on 2015 PSAT (Mean = 148 and SD = 26), and 1,724,416 test takers
PSAT 2015 …Percentile
228…99.89
227…99.88
226…99.87
225…99.85
224…99.83
223…99.81
222…99.78
221…99.75
220…99.72
219…99.68
218…99.64
217…99.60
216…99.55
215…99.50
214…99.44 @ this SI and up,~ 9656 NMSF qualifiers
213…99.38 @ this SI and up, 10691 NMSF qualifiers
212…99.30 @ this SI and up, 12070 NMSF qualifiers
211…99.23 @ this SI and up, 13278 NMSF qualifiers
210…99.15 @ this SI and up, 14657 NMSF qualifiers
@dallaspiano Thanks for your terrific effort in putting the chart together. I would love to believe it, but the anecdotal information (and esp. Testmasters review of 8500 scores in the Houston, TX area) indicates that the SI chart cannot be taken at its face value. Sad, disappointing, and even infuriating, but true. They’re saying that the cutoff for TX will be as high as 219 (which seems to be the number they’re pegging). That doesn’t square with the SI chart. I hope that you are right and that the 8500 scores (and what we’re hearing elsewhere, such as in Cobb County, GA) are just skewed to the local population. But we already know that the national percentiles are inflated, which leads one to look at any additional data/tables/charts provided by CB with healthy skepticism. Thanks again for your work.