Hold on - “they aren’t allowed to go there”? What does that mean exactly? They are actually told “we don’t serve your kind here” or they just find when they do go that none of the Asian kids speak to them. Specifics please.
(And how much socializing is done at these places anyway? I thought everyone was actually spending time prepping for their tests.)
Oh, sorry - they’re allowed to go there but none of the Asian kids speak to them
There’s a ton of socializing (mainly for grades/ECs comparisons between every single person you meet) but the sessions are a few hours long, so it’s usually not just ACT/SAT prep for a few hours
It’s weird though because some of the tutors encourage the socializing which I always found odd…
@labegg can you share links with information about Merit for Freshmen at UT Austin? The only merit based aid I’ve found is the 40 Acres Scholarship with is supper competitive and limited to a very few and Texas state one year tuition waiver (not fees) for Valedictorians of Texas schools. Everything I can find states that UT merit based aid is tied to financial need with a few exceptions of small departmental scholarship ($1-5K)
http://www.utexas.edu/cola/plan2/admission/scholarship.php
Where are you finding the information about “healthy merit package” for UT Austin freshman?
UT Dallas on the other hand offers a full ride to NM so four years free vs. $100,000 I can see why someone would choose over a free school over one they can’t afford.
Thanks for clarifying @glassflowers. I’m sure that the non-Asian kids can deal with not socializing if it means the quality of the prep is good. At any rate, that’s my view as a parent 
I don’t think that makes sense. Just because more people took the test doesn’t mean you’ll have more 1%'ers in an equal ratio; there just aren’t that many people on the planet that test that well.
I agree @MotherOfDragons. The “high scorers” are likely the kids who were taking it before. The influx of new test takers is probably in the middle or lower ends of the Bell Curve.
The mathematical definition of 99th percentile= the score level such that 99% of the total testing population scored lower.
Thus it follows that the top 1% of scorers in the testing population are in the 99th percentile. If the new test-takers are low-scorers, they won’t be part of that 1%. But if more people take the test, there are more people in the 99th percentile. It’s just the mathematical definition. What do you think “percentile” means?
Just curious, is there anyone who received the tasp email that didn’t feel they did well? Or missed more than 2-3 on the entire test?
Also remember that the NMSF group is capped by the (roughly) 16,000, so not everyone in the top 1% will make it. The different score cuts across the country also allow students who are not in the national top 1% to make it, while other in that top 1% won’t (CA/NJ/DC/etc).
I wonder if the NMS has always been given to the top 1% in each state or how long they have been at the 16K student finalist numbers. With the increased number of kids going to college AND normal population growth, the program is getting more and more competitive. At what point will a perfect score not get you in the finalist pool? Its got to be pretty close to that for the DC/International group with the highest cutoff threshold.
@3scoutsmom. No I cannot provide you with a link. I was speculating.
You can find detailed PSAT percentile score analysis by state here (through 2014 obviously).
http://research.collegeboard.org/programs/psat/data/cb-jr
As you can see from these reports, CB has been running the numbers on the various populations and making “on track for college” determinations for years. However, these calculations were buried in the research area.
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/09/01/merit
UT Austin stopped sponsoring National Merit scholarships in 2009 in order to redirect the money to those with financial need.
NMSF is actually close to the top 0.5% nationally. The 16K has been fixed for a long time, and the graduating population varies, so the percentile varies. Because the number of high scores varies a lot from state to state, the state cutoffs vary from 225 to 202. Commended is 34,000 students, so if the graduating class is about 3.3 million as stated earlier, Commended (202) is currently about 99.0 percentile. A 225 is probably somewhere north of 99.667 %ile.
Last year, a -5 was still qualifying (226) everywhere. So, at least through last year, we were not talking about anyone needing a perfect score.
I think the graduating class size is actually trending down a bit, since we just passed the echo Boomers. But, yes the number of test prepped kids is increasing.
If the graduating class size is 3.3 million, I’m actually a little skeptical about 4.5 million kids taking it this year. I’d like to hear that number from more than one person who answered the phone at College Board.
Assuming the 4.5 mil is accurate that must include those who are excluded from the National Merit program (foreign students, etc.), and those who are 10th grade and younger.
Still, 4.5 million is huge - I’m a bit skeptical of that number myself. It doesn’t seem realistic that one standardized test could basically triple in the number of test takers in only one year.
You are right that NMS has to be way above 99th percentile in many states. Historically, 99th percentile was not a particularly high scaled numerical score. I think in the 1970s, 99th percentile was about 64 per section. Today, there are many more very high numerical scores because there is much more prep and the test is too easy. This is the problem with trying to do two completely different things with one test: (1) select the very,very best students; (2) measure the college readiness of the average student. The SAT was invented to do just the first. Over time, it has been revised and adjusted to do also the second. I don’t think these can both be done well with a single test. Most other countries do not try to do both with a single test. The US tries to do both with a single test because it would be politically incorrect to separate the high achiever group from the average group (the average group would be full of hot potatoes); and because CB and the rest of the test-making industry are making pots of money with the single test system.
According to the 2014 CB PSAT report in the link above, in 2014 1.6 million juniors and 1.8 million sophomores took the PSAT = 3.4 million juniors + sophomores. Since the 2015 test was given on two school days, I think 4.5 million is plausible.
They had it on a weekday and lots of schools pay for all Sophomores and Juniors to take it. I can imagine that MANY MANY sophmores would not have gone in on a Saturday morning in previous years to take a test, but on a weekday- the only other option to miss the test, was to miss school. I can see that making the number of test takers higher. As the College Board WELL knew would happen. Agreed, we don’t really know how many Juniors that qualify for NMS took it.
http://research.collegeboard.org/programs/psat/data/cb-jr
"Highlights of 2014 Junior Data
1,595,486 juniors took the PSAT/NMSQT.
Highlights of 2014 Sophomore Data
1,812,143 sophomores took the PSAT/NMSQT."
Approximately 3.4 million students took the PSAT in 2014. 4.5 million is not triple 3.4 million.
This was the year they didn’t offer a Saturday test, correct? Our school always used the Saturday date in the past, and had maybe 20-30% of the student population test, if that. This year, everyone tested as part of the rollout program. Maybe this was true for other schools as well? (Yes, I see that @Plotinus already pointed out the school day thought, and I agree there.)
Sure, @Plotinus, I was wrong about the percentile, but the arbitrary top 1% figure does not matter. As @Ynotgo pointed out, there is a relatively fixed number of Commended and Semifinalist spots. Increasing the number of semifinalists would just water down the title’s significance, so, therefore, the percentile must shift according to the number of test takers. I still maintain that the influx of new test takers is not necessarily bad news, even though the percentile will shrink. Chances are the new test takers will not have spectacularly high scores in general since this will be the first test for many of them. Whereas many, now juniors, took the PSAT in sophomore year, the new ones (assuming that they aren’t all sophomores) will likely bring the median score (as well as the top 1ish percent) down with them.