I knew chances for NMSF were slim, but I thought I had commended in the bag. With a 1400(206 SI) and a 99th percentile score, I thought commended was pretty much guaranteed. Wasn’t commended top 3% in previous years? Why is it so selective now? Or is it just because my breakdown was math heavy, so I had a lower end SI for my composite score?
The percentiles that the collegeboard published were inaccurate. They inflated the percentages to make it seem like people did better than they actually did, and would be encouraged to take the new SAT. Your score report may have said “99%”, but you probably were actually in the 97th - 98th percentile. That’s still a great score though, so don’t feel discouraged and focus on the actual SAT instead.
Unfortunately, College Board did not provide percentiles that were based on the scores of the actual test takers. Instead they provided percentiles that were based on the scores of a separate experimental test group. Apparently this test group must not have had enough tippy-top students in it to make it comparable to the real test takers. In other words, 209 really was at around the 97th percentile of the actual test takers. Because of this, many students across the country believed that they had a good chance at recognition when they actually didn’t. It has been very disappointing for them. Many had their hopes so high that they are having difficulty accepting it and moving on.
By the way, one thing that didn’t change with the new PSAT is that the selection score used for determining semifinalists is still based two-thirds on language skills and one-third on math.
@highcoll @BunnyBlue So does that mean if I get a 1400 on the new SAT, its not as impressive as a 1400 CR+M on the old SAT?
@BunnyBlue Yeah I know it was only 1/3 math for the SI, thats why I was wondering if having a math heavy score also made me miss commended.
Oh, I understand now what you were saying about the math. Yeah, that’s very frustrating.
As far as whether scores on the new SAT turn out to be comparable to those of the old SAT, I just don’t know. I think whether this is so will be independent of what happened with the PSAT.