<p>My son scored a 213 on his PSAT. We live in SD and the cut off was 206 last year. I am wondering if anyone has any feel for whether cuts will generally be going up this year? I know it is state by state and one student locally did exceptionally well.</p>
<p>I have heard +8 in SD…</p>
<p>+8 would be a huge jump… but no one actually knows until fall. Literally… you school guidance counselor, a stranger on the internet (ahem… KCT…), NO ONE knows until the actual semi-finalist information is available. It goes to the high schools later in August, but some of them don’t tell students for a few weeks. Anyone who tells you that they know what the scores will do is lying.</p>
<p>So make plans accordingly. Visit and consider some colleges assuming your kid is NMF, and some assuming they are not. Even if he makes semifinalist, there are always a few kids who don’t make the final cut, so you just can’t count on it.</p>
<p>Ouch. Plus 8 justs puts him out by one point! The only state that has ever jumped by 8 points is Alaska. Where did you hear….</p>
<p>Thank you. That plus 8 doesn’t make me feel better.</p>
<p>Okay, you are silly if you think KCT knows ANYTHING about this. He runs around doing this on every thread where people post this fear that they will miss the cutoff next year (he adds 1 to whatever you need and says he “has heard” that is the jump next year). He has not “heard” anything except the voices in his head… he doesn’t know one lick more about it than anyone else. If you want to feel better, go search the NMF forum here for the last five years and find the threads that start in the fall and run for a couple of months listing all the changes for each state. It will say, “South Dakota +2” or “South Dakota -3” next to your state. See how much the number jumped each year over the past 5 years and which way. That would give you an idea of how big a swing is LIKELY to occur for your state. But NO ONE REALLY KNOWS until the NMF notifications come out in the fall. No one ‘hears rumors’ or has any idea.</p>
<p>I thought that was his game… I have looked at ranges over the last 5 years across the nation. Excluding Alaska between 2010 and 2012 the largest swing was 4-5 points. The average probably closer to 2-3 points. I have not done the exact math. Unfortunately the school counselor did not understand how the cut off is determined and voiced the opinion that a 332 by ONE student ruined the curve for everyone else. Not the case. That student simply takes one of the top 25 or so spots. Approximately 2500 juniors took the psat last year in SD. From one parent to another thanks for your responses. I wish there was a way to gage whether cut off scores were likely to go up or down this year.</p>
<p>Hofmannmd, your son is practically guaranteed to move on to semifinalist. Alaska had an 8 point jump ONCE, and a jump that large is mainly because the small population of Alaska means the scores are not as stable. I recommend taking the SAT and sending the score to the National Merit Scholarship Corporation so you already have a confirmed SAT score when you are notified of semifinalist.</p>
<p>There is no benefit in sending the scores early, although if he is taking it anyway you can use that as one of his “free scores”. Although some people would want to see the score before sending it – in case his first attempt is low for some reason and he decides to take again. If he is NMSF, he has a while (I think around end of December, but don’t recall for sure) to get his score in.</p>
<p>It is a sad occurrence when a someone takes advantage of the anxiety of a new poster.</p>
<p>Hofmannmd, IMO you are justified in planning as if he he will be a NMSF. While it is true that it is not guaranteed (and that no one can say with authority what the cut-off will be) In the light of history the chance he does not make the cut for SD is probably larger than the chance he gets hit by a meteor but deserves about as much worry.</p>
<p>Also IMO the benefit of taking trying to obtain a qualifying SAT score sooner rather than later is to allow time for a re-take if a score of 2000+ is not obtained in the first sitting. I would suggest a March, May, or June sitting so the fall is available for a re-take. In addition, if he is thinking of applying to the 70 or so schools that require or suggest SAT Subject tests, he’ll need time to schedule a sitting for that, too. (Most of those schools, however, do not offer large scholarships to NMF’s.) It is also the case that he will probably be a little less busy in the coming semester rather than next fall when senior year activities and the college application process is in full swing.</p>
<p>I suggest you and he take a look at the NMF scholarship opportunities listed on a sticky thread in this forum to assess whether or not he might want to apply. The school nearest to you with a substantial scholarship probably is Minnesota-Morris.</p>
<p>You should check out the 2015 national merit thread. The first two posts give you the historical scores.</p>
<p>SD 204 202 206 205 206 ? 203 205 205 205 206 204 206</p>
<p>These have been the scores for the past 12 years. There is no way SD will crack 210 since last year was the worst year for most applicants where pretty much most States have seen their peaks and so did SD at 206.</p>
<p>I would like to be wrong on my analysis but it seems to me the cutoff should go up for the class of 2015. Here’s how I get there: I looked at the state summary report for the class of 2015 when they were sophomores (the 2012 report) and compared their scores (the top two scoring categories) to the class of 2014 when they were sophomores (the 2011 report) and for the state of Texas the class of 2015 scored higher. So, it seems that they would also score higher as Juniors than the previous class. I would love for someone to find that I have an error in this analysis because my daughter needs it to go down by one point.</p>
<p>Oh Less, I think I can help. I had that same panicked conclusion a few weeks back. But then I realized that FAR more students test their junior year, than their sophomore year, and also noticed that the trend of sophomores outscoring juniors is a repeated one, at least in PA.</p>
<p>My thinking (feel free to weigh in!) is that perhaps the brighter sophomores test, and that many more average students do not, at least in a school where they don’t just blanket test everyone. This would tend to inflate the sophomore scores above the cut level scores, when more students are encouraged to test as juniors.</p>
<p>Going down would be nice, but I can’t guarantee that. My own predictions have scores staying roughly the same for the most part, but maybe down a point here and there. Fingers crossed!</p>
<p>@less & PAM,
2014 took the PSAT the two years ago as sophomores and scored lower than 2015 did last year (as you say, I haven’t looked at the info myself). So, either 2015 is better at these tests, or last year’s PSAT test was easier. </p>
<p>But 2014 and 2105 both took last year’s PSAT test–the same test. And both classes scored high on that test. I think it’s pretty clear that last year’s PSAT test was just easier. Those were historically pretty high scores and I doubt the testmakers want them to keep going up. </p>
<p>Think about it. It’s not so easy to make tests year after year which are absolutely identical in difficulty. There’s going to be some fluctuation. I’m sure there are long-term changes in these scores due to all kinds of things like quality of education, amount of prep students are doing, amount of time students spend reading, changing demographics of how many students are taking the test and what the academic backgrounds of these new test takers are. But these are longer term trends. In such a large population, you aren’t going to see much change in a single year unless there’s been some unusual dramatic change in the test-taking population (for example a midwestern state where these tests aren’t as popular might suddenly require all juniors to take the PSAT). </p>
<p>I would just look at the historical ranges. I think that’s the best you can do at this point.</p>
<p>The scores going up or down depends on whether more students take the test and whether test is hard or easy.</p>
<p>National merit numbers are allocated based on the size of the graduating class in the nation, percentage of graduation class in each state and then allocating that percentage of 16,000 students. So there are million graduating students, Texas has 100,000, then Texas gets 10% allocation of 16000 NMSFs which is 1600.</p>
<p>Now we go to the next issue. How many people in 100k take the test in Texas. 11th grade test is not mandated but 10th grade one is in most school districts in Texas since the districts want to ensure the students are aware of it. So it is quite possible 75-80k tested in 10th because it is mandatory while only 50k took it in 11th because many feel it won’t matter to them anyway although I don’t think it is that different in terms of actual numbers between 10th and 11th. Since the test itself is considered an aptitude test, it is expected that the more people take it who are qualified in a State, the higher the scores are in that State. If you look at the statistics and cutoffs in each state, you will notice that the higher the participation rate as a percentage, the high the score and east coast has the highest scores at the moment because of the participation rate.</p>
<p>Hardness of the test - If the test is easy, higher scores are easily achieved. The way I look at easy vs hard is by comparing how many points one loses based on number of mistakes. I posted on another thread that based on what I have seen for a high scoring candidate, 2 mistakes in writing was a 74, 3 mistakes in math was a 71 which means more people did really well and low number of mistakes are resulting drastic cuts which reflects a congregation of high scorers and thus an easier test.</p>
<p>2014 had the highest cutoffs ever in most of the states. So my guess is the scores for 2015 won’t be any lower but they can only go higher in states with low cut offs. Once they have crossed 220 for a cut off, it is very hard to get any higher by more than one or two points.</p>
<p>texaspg, are those numbers you posted supposed to be hypothetical for purposes of illustration?</p>
<p>Actual numbers. Texas gets 1237/16000 NMSF =7.73% (from NMSC annual report)</p>
<h1>of graduating seniors in US = 3.3 million -I think, may not have this exact and anyone who has the correct number that NMSC uses please post it. I’d love to know. Maybe they use a smaller number.</h1>
<p>So Texas must graduate about 250,000 seniors (.0773 X 3.3 million)</p>
<p>Last year Texas had 229,000 sophomores and 207,000 juniors take the PSAT. That is a huge proportion of students. Wow.</p>
<p>“I posted on another thread that based on what I have seen for a high scoring candidate, 2 mistakes in writing was a 74, 3 mistakes in math was a 71 which means more people did really well and low number of mistakes are resulting drastic cuts which reflects a congregation of high scorers and thus an easier test.”</p>
<p>FWIW, last year just ONE mistake in writing dropped you to a 75! And one mistake in math down to a 76. I’d have to pull the full tables to compare completely, but those scoring cuts suggest the test this year was actually harder.</p>
<p>“texaspg, are those numbers you posted supposed to be hypothetical for purposes of illustration?”</p>
<p>Correct. </p>
<p>So two mistakes in writing is 74 this year. What was it last year? Math has a very high number of people scoring perfect almost every year (same with SAT) and so one mistake will never get a perfect score on any test but how far it drops does vary based on the test how many score perfect.</p>
<p>*Math has a very high number of people scoring perfect almost every year (same with SAT) *</p>
<p>Yes…same with the old Quantitative (math) GRE. Way too many perfect 800’s. If you got an 800, you were in the 8Xth percentile. </p>
<p>However, knowing that only one wrong answer can really drop a score can really show how students in “lower cutoff” states really didn’t miss a lot of answers.<br>
It would be interesting to see how many wrong answers would a child have missed to end up with a 210. I know that each section is different, but what would the score be if a student missed:</p>
<p>Math 4
CR 3
W 4</p>
<p>or</p>
<p>Math 5
CR 1
W 5</p>
<p>How many total questions are there?</p>
<p>My son had a 209 last year, and that was just one wrong in math, one wrong in writing, and a decent amount wrong in CR (his weakest subject). Let me get the charts though…</p>
<p>Remember too, that the Wednesday scoring is different from the Saturday scoring. I believe the Wednesday scoring to be more generous overall. I know it’s normed and all that, but for a kid likely to make just one careless mistake here and there, he would be better off testing on Wednesday.</p>
<p>For this year, the above scenarios score as follows:</p>
<p>**Math 4, CR 3, W 4<a href=“assuming%20guessing%20penalties%20apply,%20which%20might%20changes%20things%20for%20the%20math,%20if%20the%20wrong%20answers%20were%20free%20response%20questions”>/b</a>
Wednesday M 70, CR 73, W 67, total 210
Saturday M 67, CR 73, W 68, total 208</p>
<p>Math 5, CR 1, W 5
Wednesday M 68, CR 79, W 65, total 212
Saturday M 66, CR 80, W 65, total 211</p>
<p>There are 48 total reading questions, 38 total math, and 39 total writing.</p>