<p>@texaspg, where do the “number crunchers” post on CC when they start making predictions? Does someone start a new thread and go from there? When do predictions start? I know it’s silly to put much stock in the predictions of others, but DS is on the bubble for our state - and NMS would mean a lot to us, given our financial situation - so I’m willing to look at predictions, if only to pass the time while waiting until August 2014 ;-)</p>
<p>@GoAskDad: I mean we can start such a thing in this thread. </p>
<p>I felt this test was a little harder than last yr’s so I would say cutoffs would go down a bit.</p>
<p>@Living61: 219 is not commended. In the whole nation, 202-203 is commended. There are cutoffs per state only for National Merit, not for Commended.</p>
<p>The national cut-off for Commended has historically been 200-203. That does mean that a 219 would be Commended in California or any other state where the cut-off for National Merit Semifinalist is more than 219.</p>
<p>There is a commended cutoff score and anyone not making the cut for national merit semi-finalist but makes the commended is automatically commended. So STEMFamily’s statement is accurate - 203 and above automatically makes commended.</p>
<p>GoAskDAD - I have seen someone go to great lengths in evaluating each State’s 99+ percentile scores (don’t know if they are out) to come up with predictions. I read through the posts an year or two ago but could not figure out if they were correct when the numbers finally came out.</p>
<p>Have you looked at highs and lows for your state?</p>
<p>Shellybean–the access code the Collegeboard requires to see PSAT scores isn’t a high school code, but a sequence listed on a mailed score report (if you don’t have that, you can’t get into the website). Is that what you’re asking about?</p>
<p>Texaspg, I don’t think using the percentiles will help anymore. The percentiles are based on the previous year’s test takers. I don’t think we will know much about the percentiles until the Understanding the 2014 PSAT Scores report comes out in one year, and by then we will know all the state cutoffs. The state reports have percentile groupings so those aren’t much help either.</p>
<p>It used to be that the percentiles were based on a sample of students who took the test that year, but now the percentiles are based on the previous year.</p>
<p>An addition to my prior post - the state reports do show how many students took the test nationwide and per state, and also show whether the scores increased or decreased in CR, M and W. Seems like in Texas, a cumulative increase means the cutoff will go up, and an cumulative decrease means the cutoff will go down. It is a little tricky looking at this because an increase or decrease in scores in 2011, for example, affects the cutoff for the class of 2013. I looked at it the other night (the things insomniacs do at 3 a.m.) and found it easy to get confused!</p>
<p>Our school still hasn’t released PSAT scores (MA). They now say January, and they blame collegeboard, but does that actually make sense? How can there be a month difference across the country for scores release?</p>
<p>In Katy Texas, just found the scores updated on the school account this week - my daughter got 230 (CR 80, M 76 and W 74) - looks like writing this time around was harder - because she made 77 in writing when took psat as Soph last year.</p>
<p>It was released the day before winter break at my school. I did worse than I thought I did on writing.</p>
<p>Any idea when the statewide PSAT cut off get announced ?</p>
<p>I called the College Board a few days ago to find out why our school had not received the scores yet. The rep told me that all scores should be reported to the schools by the end of January. She said the number of test takers had more than doubled year-over-year. (I think she said the number went from 1.5 million to 4 million!)</p>
<p>She denied that anything was “slower” this year, as she maintains they are scoring the tests at the same rate as previous years. She said there are just many more tests to score this year.</p>
<p>She also said that starting Jan 15, the scores will be available online without needing the access code from the printed score sheet. I asked how that worked, and she said they will match information from the student info part of the completed test to the same information in the online account.</p>
<p>It is already in the Collegeboard web site since yesterday!</p>
<p>I got a 200.</p>
<p>Yotommy, that sounds like a big jump in test-takers. In a typical year, about 3 million students take the PSAT - about half are sophomores and about half are juniors. According to the US Dept of Ed, about 3.3 million students are expected to graduate from high school in 2013–14. I know some states are now paying for the PSAT for all students. Would that account for the jump in test-takers? I am holding out hope that the likely top scorers would have taken it anyway, and any increase in numbers won’t change the top (National Merit cutoffs!) too much. Is this just wishful thinking?</p>
<p>Thanks for the numbers, Barfly. You may be on to something about state mandates increasing the number of test takers - if so, then your reasoning about the cutoffs makes sense to me.</p>
<p>BTW, my daughter received a bunch of email messages all at once yesterday from colleges, so I assume her score (or score range) has been reported to <em>someone</em> (though not to her!).</p>
<p>yotommy - the collegeboard sent out the access code by email around the 3rd to review and work on improving for SAT. They had sent this out in early February in the past.</p>
<p>It should be associated with the email address submitted during the test. Please check all spam folders. Why hasn’t your school released the scores yet?</p>
<p>I will have my daughter check her spam folder for the access code.</p>
<p>Our school has not released the scores because they have not <em>received</em> the scores. We received a letter from the school a week ago saying they are in “constant contact” with the College Board. My own call to the College Board a couple of weeks ago confirmed that many schools had not received their scores at that time.</p>
<p>Still no report via the school, but my daughter was able to access her scores via the college board website today (without an access code).</p>
<p>Same here. What a shock! My son did better as a sophomore than he did a a junior. He had a perfect writing score and scored a 65 this time.</p>