They don’t balance the numbers for each state simply because the number of hs grads varies widely by state. NM awards 16,000 NMSFs each year. How many allocated to your state is determined by your state’s proportion of high School graduates. Any other allocation method would over represent some states and under represent others.
@homerdog, the state test-taker numbers x national nmsf ratio.
There is no “national NMSF ratio”. The only relevant ratio is your state’s number of hs grads relative to total number. 9% is a tad rounded because that ratio basically goes between .9% and a bit over 1% IIRC. Each state has a unique ratio.
If you wish to know the number of NMSF for your state just check the latest NMSC annual report available on their website.
The national NMSF ratio is NMSF/total PSAT Grade 11 test-takers. Around 1.7-1.8 million Grade 11 students take the PSAT test every year and create 16000 NMSF. The 1% ratio almost is fixed.
Yeah but other than your principal declaring that you are in the top one percent of testtakers it’s not a ratio that’s used for anything. If there were only 500,000 PSAT test takers the 16,000 semi finalist number wouldn’t change - it’s set by the national merit people. The relevant number for everybody is how many in your state tends to get national merit semi finalist every year – the number really doesn’t change much from year to year – and what is the cut off.
@JBStillFlying You are right, For each state, the number of NMSF is determined by state’s proportion of high School graduates. It is about 0.4-0.5%.
@ILBHHS - MN is at 304 which is about 1.9% - you can easily get the ratio just by dividing the number of SF’s in your state by total number of SF’s for a given year because NMSC uses that ratio to arrive at the 304*. Check out page 20 of the latest NMSC annual report:
One can also see from this page that any “National NMSF Ratio” makes no sense. Across the US, about 1.84% were SF (16,227 / 1,497,368 eligible testers, and note that eligible tester is going to be a smaller number than total number of testers from the archived CB reports). Turns out that MN is also about 1.8%. But CA is 1.1%. NJ is .68%. WY comes in at a whopping 2.3%. That’s why this ratio - whether a “state ratio” or a “national ratio” - makes no sense. If CB contracted with every state so that 100% of the 3 mil or so graduates must take the SAT their third year, you’d have something like .5% as your “national ratio”.
- NB: There is going to be over and under-shoot just due to where the cut-off is and how many on either side. The rule is to choose the cut-off that comes closest to the allocated number.
@IBLHHS: just as an aside, the reason the cut-off is so high in NJ is probably because they administer the PSAT to all juniors - or at least a huge % of juniors take the test. Same with CA. What you see in those cases, given that you like ratios, is a large Cut-off / Median ratio compared to, say MN (where most DON’T take the test and of those who do, a large number is vying for National Merit). In MN, the average PSAT percentile is pretty high, but the cut-off is about the median (219-220). It’s the flip-side for NJ.
@JBStillFlying Look up the CB 2017 report. The total 2017 PSAT grade 11 test-takers are 1784169, the CA are 253467.
Feel the numbers of grade 11 testers in individual state should be eligible tester number in class of 2017.
NMSC report is for class of 2016.
Does anybody have any thoughts on likely trends in cutoff’s? Which states will see rises, declines, or stay the same
@Hellomynameisinigomontoya Art Sawyer at Compass has predictions - google him and PSAT National Merit Class of 2019. He’s probably the most experienced predictor. He has a few low-population states going down. Supposedly, he has data from schools, but I don’t understand how that is the case.
(My personal prediction is still that some may go down and none will go up. But I’m just a parent.)
@ILBHHS - the CB number - which is from the Oct. 2016 test, as you probably know - is the incorrect denominator. You don’t want total 11th grade testers, you want total ELIGIBLE testers. That’s a smaller number than 1.78 million. Only NMSC has the “eligible” number and the most recent information available is the 2015-2016 annual report (NMSC always lags their reporting - this was just produced in spring of 2017!).
As an example, in October 2014 1,595,486 juniors took the PSAT, but only 1,469,451 were deemed “eligible” by National Merit. That’s a difference of about 8% of the total. You are going to see the same approximate percentage difference each year of the test.
Your 16,000 number is also slightly off. We may not know that number yet for the Class of 2018 competition but it’s going to be higher than 16,000. But only by a few hundred, if history is any indication.
And all that is assuming that a “national NMSF ratio” is even meaningful.
Your best bet in looking at any state NM information is to stick with the NMSC annual report.
@evergreen5 Those are all good points.
Of course we’re all speaking out of our butts. We’re making guesses based on partial and inaccurate data. Until the actual data is released and the cutoffs decided, we have no real way to make an accurate prediction.
I still lean towards no big change in cutoffs in larger states, because, barring a major change in the difficulty of the test (like 2015-2016), stochastic processes in large populations are fairly weak. That is why there are small changes in the cutoff between 2015 and 2016 for larger states, and all are in one direction. Because of the differences in the test, the cutoff increased between 2015 and 2016, and because a large number were taking the test, the variation in the changes was small - all are increases of 1 or 2 points (except MI). When you start looking at states that generally have 100 or fewer finalists, stochastic processes start becoming a major factor. Some states show no changes in the cutoff, one has a drop in the cutoff, and in one state the cutoff increases by 6 points. Basically the range of changes in cutoff increase from 2 (1-3) to 7 (-1- 6). Based on that, I would say that large states would have no change from 2016, or a single point one way or another, while the smaller states may have as much as a 3 point change in either direction.
None of this is based on data, but on basic laws of probability/statistics.
Of course, because it IS probabilistic, even a 4 or 5 point shift in either direction is not impossible. It’s just very improbable. If there was a major change in the difficulty of the test, of which I am unaware, my prediction of only small changes in large states is meaningless.
Based on the slow increase in SAT and ACT scores over the years, I also think that, as time passes, and methods for preparing students for the new PSAT are improved, there’ll be a general slow creep upwards in the cutoffs.
My son has a SI of 218 which looks like it will be too low for Georgia which is predicted to be 220. I’m thinking of having him not take the SAT and just focus on the ACT. Any thoughts about that?
@elena13 If he did not qualify for NMSF in Georgia than there is no “need” to take the SAT for verification. If he is more comfortable or seems to do better/prefer the ACT then by all means have him take that instead.
I have no horse in this race but I had to share this. Students who took the NMSQT can pick up copies tomorrow between 7:00AM-7:25AM. First semester finals start 7:30am tomorrow.
I think I’m gonna become a semifinalist (224) but my address changed between when I took the PSAT and now. Do I need to let collegeboard and Nat Merit know about this change?
Your personal address or your school? If the former, and your school has your updated contact information, then they can update NMSC once they receive your name in the spring. You can also make sure that NMSC has your current address when you complete the NMF application. If the latter, you will need to contact NMSC for instructions.
No reason to contact CB but if you want you can update your CB portal with your new address.
@dottieyu I would be VERY surprised if you weren’t a semifinalist, so congratulations and good luck!
thank you @JBStillFlying for the info!! it’s my personal address that changed, but I can’t tell my school right now because I go to a public school and I moved out of the “boundaries” for the school. I would be forced to change schools if I submit my address change which I don’t want to do bc I have officer positions in many clubs. I’ll let NMSC know on the application though.
@MWolf thank you!! I live in CA though so I’m still very near the cutoff.