A parent in Mr. Sawyers thread at CP has posted what she says is her first hand knowledge of the 2018 Commended score. For obvious reasons I won’t re-post the information here.
@NotIvyBut how do you find a parent post? I went to the website and only see a list of his articles in the blog. Thanks.
@Winky1 Look through the comments on his blog post about 2018 NM (the earlier one). If this parent report is correct, Commended cutoff has gone up by two points!
Ouch, if that’s true it’s going to be a long summer for students on the bubble.
I just called NMSC, and they confirmed that the commended cut off for 2018 is a 211.
Sigh. I guess that means my son, whose score was 1 point below the NMSF cutoff for 2017 in our state, will not make NMSF.
Good luck to all the rest of you!
Pardon the ignorance, but does a 2 point rise in the commended score translate fairly linearly to a 2 point increase in the State Cut Off? Or is it more complex than that? I think my S18 just landed square on the borderline …
@DavidPuddy (love the screenname!) It is more complex than that. Gonna be a long summer for a lot of these kids.
@DavidPuddy No, it should not be a linear transition.
The cutoffs for the high-cutoff states don’t have very far to go, so I would be very surprised to see states like MA, NJ, CA, MD, and VA go up more than a point. I think the idea of a state cutoff of 224 is pretty crazy.
Cutoffs at the lower-cutoff states will rise by about 2 points. This already means that the cutoffs for ND, SD, WV, and WY are up 2 points (probably not 3 unless one of these states had a clump of high scorers) and the cutoff for Montana is up at least one point and probably 2.
Art on the blog-that-must-not-be-named will update his predictions after he’s confirmed the commended cutoff.
Yep, and my daughter is one of them! 218 was the cutoff last year in PA, and that’s what she has now. I’ll be wondering until Sept. Do state cutoffs get leaked over the summer?
No, we will not know anything about the Semifinalists cutoffs until September.
I think it would be wise for me to start expecting her to miss the cutoff, then if she makes it, it’ll be a pleasant surprise. All PA has to do is to go up 1 pt. which I think is reasonable to expect.
Yeah, I have been following the unspeakable blog a few weeks, and heading the warning to expect rising scores. that forecast says AZ may go up from 219 (this year) to 221 or more next. My S18 sits at 221.
What about the students who scored 3 or 4 points (or more) above the previous year state cut-off? Can they begin to relax a bit more, as this is some level of confirmation that while scores have increased it would be very unlikely any state goes up 4 or 5 points when the commended level only went up 2 points?
The two point increase will mean those states at the lowet end likely rise two or more points (WV, WY, who else?). The highest end may not rise at all or may rise a point. The complication is with clumps at 216, 218, 220, etc. any particular state can go up or down a point even without natural inflation. Due to compression, you hopefully won’t see that increase play out all the way through the states, but it will definitely affect the low end. No one should be thinking their state will be lower than last year - that should be a given at this point.
Today’s update to the original CP blog post seems to answer my question in a roundabout way. He hasn’t revised predicted cut-offs yet, but suggested they will range from 0 to 3 points. If he is on the right track then, as long as you scored 3 or more points above last years cut-off you would definitely be ok. (Obviously no certainty or assurance offered, just fun prognostication 
)
Probably the likeliest example of what will happen is at Mr. Sawyer’s thread discussing historical National Merit cutoffs. There’s a scale that translates old cutoffs to new, and the adjusted Commended cutoff was also 211 in 2012. I suppose included in the variables are states that now either do or don’t pay for all kids to take the PSAT. But that year was also a two point jump.
I’m trying to be careful because I’m not sure of the rules of etiquette with regard to sharing information from one board to the next.
@LOUKYDAD, compared to some states last year, that +3 points is minimal! LOL. But it just shouldn’t be moving that much anymore. There are serious problems with using the rPSAT for National Merit.
@JBStillFlying those +3 point shifts last year had more to do with changes in the test and scaling of scores, right?
What are the chances of a state not moving its cutoff?
@Winky1 My daughter is in the exact same position - PA with an SI of 218. And I agree, my expectations at this point are that she won’t make it but it would be wonderful if she (and your daughter) did.