How do I say, some go up, some go down and some stay the same
For example in TX, TAMS - Texas Academy of Math Science - only the very very top students (of 10th grade) in all Texas are picked to attend for 11th and 12th, very selective
53 - Plano West (Plano ISD)
45 - TAMS @ North Texas (public residential)
36 - Coppell High (Coppell ISD)
33 - Flower Mound High (Lewisville ISD)
28 - St. Marks School of Texas (boys - private)
I donât remember asking about North Dallas. Please re-read my questions, and give me your predictions.
Or ignore the questions because you donât like your answers. Itâs your choice. But you really should be prepared to defend your arguments. Itâs the way the world works.
Here is my current collection of anecdotes from this thread. For each one, I have made a guess as to what the cutoff would be to be reasonable for that school (and their historic # of NMSF). Often, the guess is essentially a shot in the dark, e.g. how do you guess the highest or second highest score if all you know is that 10 kids scores >= 205?
Please point out anyoneâs schoolâs anecdotes that Iâve missed:
AJ2017 #2333:
My childâs school in FL that typically has between 3-6 NMSF/year has 3 students with SI between 218 to 220, 3 students 215 to 217, and 6 students between 205 to 214.
[FL cutoff was 214 - implied cutoff of 215?]
mphill1tx:
We have averaged 10 - 12 nmsf/year. we have 20 juniors with a 210 or higher and 5 with a 219 or higher. Texas school
[tx cutoff was 220 - implied cutoff of 214?]
idahohusker #2303:
For Idaho:
our school has maybe one or two a year.
10 students in the top 1% for SI and Total Score (2% of the student body)
About 25 kids scored above 199 for SI (5% of the student body)
[Idaho cutoff was 208 - implied cutoff of 215??? Could be anything reallyâŠ]
destined4harvard #2300:
If anyone cares [of course we do! ], my school has 17 students in the 99th percentile based on SI Index and it had 6 NMSF last year.
[KY was 210 - implied cutoff of 210?? (With 17 >= 205, what score for 6?)]
WGSK88 #2079:
For IL, in her school they had 12 children scoring 218 exactly and 10 children scoring 219 to 228 and 33 children scoring 215 or higher.
Graduating Class of 2011 - 22 NMSF
Graduating Class of 2012 - 12 NMSF
Graduating Class of 2013 - 23 NMSF
Graduating Class of 2014 - 13 NMSF
Graduating Class of 2015 - 23 NMSF
Graduating Class of 2016 - 17 NMSF
[IL was 215 - implied cutoff of 218? (which would yield 22)]
@DoyleB, I understand your questions and I do not ignore your questions and I like to answer your questions if I can. But I am a junior, probably same age with your kids, if you want specific answers, I would refer you to my previous posts. With full respect to you, I have nothing against you.
By the way, if I am wrong. Sorry âmy Badâ
Again
Please, do not take my opinions or conclusions seriously since I am junior in HS and if you follow my posts you would see things like âmy methods or my ways of estimate have many flawsâ or " an estimate is an estimate. My Guess is as good as or as bad as anybodyâs". I am not a CB official
[FL cutoff was 214 - implied cutoff of 215?] @dallaspiano predicted 205
[tx cutoff was 220 - implied cutoff of 214?] @dallaspiano predicted 211
[Idaho cutoff was 208 - implied cutoff of 215??? Could be anything reallyâŠ] @dallaspiano predicted 200
[KY was 210 - implied cutoff of 210?? (With 17 >= 205, what score for 6?)] @dallaspiano predicted 201
[IL was 215 - implied cutoff of 218? (which would yield 22)] @dallaspiano predicted 207
Seeing a pattern here? I donât mean to pick on anyone, but if youâre going to run around here defending the SI table, you need to come up with a decent response to the questions Iâve asked above. Holding your breath and turning blue, or wishing it were so, or saying âmy guess is as good as anybody elseâsâ, are not decent responses. Theyâre simply hiding oneâs head in the sand. Theyâre covering your ears and saying âLa la la la la la. I canât hear youâ. People here are smarter than that. Try harder. Think about it. Come up with a reasonable answer.
The image (Do they call it an avatar? I should ask my kids. I am so outdated) associated with your user name is so perfect. It really makes me smile. We all need to choose images that so well express what we are saying. We could pick the images for each other, but we would have to be careful not to be insulting. But I would have to agree we you @DoyleB. Those anecdotes are hard to ignore.
True believers, donât lose the faith! Anecdotes are just that. I also am a true believer. Though my faith is being shaken. I am collecting these anecdotes only so that I can send my congratulations to all of these schools who have clearly done waay better than they have in the pastâŠ
Another anecdote from above I neglected to include - which like most of the anecdotes makes me sad, errr, I mean HAPPY for these super-performing schools!
slaudsmom #2332:
Anecdotally of course, our GC told me only that my DD was highest in her school with her 1480, but that there were several others at 1470. Her school typically only has one to 3 semi finalists a year. her 220 is in Utah.
[Utah was 206 - implied cutoff of 220?]
@DoyleB, I am not scared of being wrong. The thing I am scared is not learning from wrong doing. All I want is to do some estimates based on my biased assumptions. Is there some thing wrong?
Your writing style to me seem like you pick on me even you say you donât.
I was honest to disclose myself as a junior, if I pretend as a concerned parents I wonder how you would respond
About âif youâre going to run around hereâ and " Holding your breath and turning blue, or wishing it were so", are you respecting me as a person?
I assume you are an educated person, if you disagree say you disagree you do not need to have that kind of language.
When you do so, you offend me personally and and you offend everybody on this thread, whoever does not agree with your arguments?
Intro: this is the internet. We speculate, question, trust nothing 100%, think out loud, shoot the breeze, and paraphrase information. Ideally we all know it & remain pleasant.
Argument: The SI tables are under threat from anecdotal evidence. One robust example right now seems to be:
âFor IL, I got the following from my daughters school (My daughter has 218 (1470) on 228 scale). Her school counselor gave me the averages, in her school they had 12 children scoring 218 exactly and 10 children scoring 219 to 228 and 33 children scoring 215 or higher. All these are Juniors numbers from my daughterâs school.â
The pessimists find confirming evidence for everything they believe. True believers are asked to explain.
One explanation is to ask about the information. Does it pass the pessimistsâ notoriously tough sniff test? Is it possible that the school counselor misspoke, exaggerated, misunderstood the question? Is it possible that the counselor combined juniors & sophomores (in some or all of this data, e.g. the school total)? Is it possible that the parent reporting this information, being human, misinterpreted something, got a number mixed upâŠ?
Predictions by @dallaspiano is on the lower side and anecdotal evidence seems to show that. It is ok for prediction to be 'biased" in one direction and it is ok to be âwrongâ as well if that is the case. I appreciate the fact @dallaspiano a HS student is more passionate and more âstakeâ in the cutoff, appreciate @DoyleB and @thshadow adding caution, as I âfeelâ that testmaster numbers are more or less is the ball park figure.I have stake for CA at SI220 and think will be +/-1 of that.
âIf anyone cares, my school has 17 students in the 99th percentile based on SI Index and it had 6 NMSF last year. The cutoff for KY was 210 last year, and that was somewhere in the mid-98th percentile.â
The bottom of the 99 percentile in the SI table is a 205. Mid 98 is a 203. @dallaspiano estimate for KY was a 201.
@dallaspiano Iâm truly not picking on you - Iâm trying to help you learn. Clinging to an opinion in the face of evidence to the contrary isnât learning; itâs just being stubborn. If you donât like the way the evidence is pointing, try to develop a theory that explains it away. Hypothesize. Think harder.
Remember the old saying: Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.
@DoyleB, Thank for help me learn. But you are not a good teacher in my view
Another âClinging to an opinion in the face of evidence to the contrary isnât learning; itâs just being stubbornâ
[Utah was 206 - implied cutoff of 220?] This is one anecdote, I find hard to believe (not doubting the posterâs story). Just find it Exceptionally hard to believe Utah goes from 206 to 220 [Testmasters is predicting a 212]. Conclusion might be that anecdotal stories must only be part of the input into predictions.
I must admit some of the anecdotes give me pause. Besides the ones recently mentioned, there are the high Cobb district scores.
Schools will fluctuate. Daughterâs school has gone from 3 to 5 to 9 over 3 years and expect 12-15 this year. It can happen. But I do wish to hear more anecdotes from schools showing they expect SF numbers to drop. If some schools are increasing, other schools have to be decreasing in SFâŠ
Youâre going to be in college soon. Back in the day, you could expect your beliefs to be challenged there, and youâd learn to defend your positions. Perhaps today everyone will be in a âsafe placeâ instead, like the Ivy league whiners seem to be demanding. And you can cling to the belief that the sky is green, and â2+2=5â.
But soon youâll need to grow up. I hope for your sake that when you get to college youâll have a lot of teachers like me, who challenge you. Youâll learn a lot that way.
@dallaspiano: âDoyleB ---- SHUT UP, do you hearâ
@LadyMeowMeow â thanks for that perspective â @DoyleB â yes there certainly is some anecdotal data that raises questions and concerns about the SI percentile tables and any estimated cut toffs by Test Masters or others but there is some data too that at least gives it some support too - for certain states, schools, ranges of scores etc. This is a year when I think many if not all bets are off a bit - the total SI range goes down 12 points & yet many of the top states may not see their cut offs go down by much if any and others will go up. We really are all just trying to look at a variety of data through different lenses - best we can do without lots of GC spreedsheet data along with the state summary reports. I donât think @dallaspiano should feel a need to analyze all the other posts reported here and come up with making sense of them â there are so many possibilities & we have seen some feedback from GCs reported here that we KNEW were wrong - not saying the items you ponted out are. There are ranges of SIs that line up with various total scores too & in many cases we do not have that specific info. @SLparent did a great job on the table with SI info - but of course it still in a small sample. So I think unless any of us KNOWS for sure something is factually wrong and requires correction, we should allow people to think out loud, come up with different ideas and share them as well as any points of information they learn about - we can each give as much weight to whatever we want of course. I actually wish I had more faith in CB, but due to many missteps and errors in info as well as questions I have about their motives for a number of actions they have taken, rally causes me to doubt much about them. I feel for families for whom the PSAT really matters and for students trying to decide about the ACT or SAT or even what APs they should take based on the CB suggestions.
@LadyMeowMeow I had not thought about that before but I would say that parents are far more concerned about this than the GCs. Given the GC are busy, they could certainly make mistakes. The press release from Cobb county is harder to explain but could be reporting bias. Maybe, the percentiles are probably not totally off but slightly misleading in the top percentile. Anyway, I would like to say @dallaspiano I particularly enjoy reading your posts. I am so impressed with the research you do and your understanding of statistics. This thread would not be so addicting for me if it were not for posters like you and some others that really do the research, collect and organize the data, and support their conclusions as well. Thank you.
Interesting post @theshadow#2342. I am in the pessimist camp in light of anecdotal evidence. However, I perhaps lean more conservative and think states with historical >= average cutoffs (say 215 or higher) to actually improve some. Thus, my prediction for IL cutoff at 219 with that one school staying at 10 NMSF. For TX which had 220 as its cutoff in 2014, my prediction is at 219, with that one school having 5 NMSF. I feel OH will be at 216-217 though. Of course, all bets are off if the underlying data reported here isnât accurate.
@DoyleB, you are committing micro-aggressions - I think. Not totally sure though, because I never heard the term until reading articles about Yale students.
Okay, I will take a stab at this. The school typically has 1-3 NMSF. This is the first year that the district has paid for the PSAT and offered it on a school day so I think there are a lot of elements that might contaminant a year to year comparison. That being said, there are 11 juniors in the 99th percentile. Their scores are as follows: 218 (1), 217 (2), 215 (1), 211 (2), 208 (1), 207 (1), 206 (2), 205 (1). (There are six sophomores that fell in this range also) So, this is Arizona. I have read that unofficial sources that suggest an Arizona cutoff in the 201-205 range which makes sense to me intuitively, but I have no idea if this kind of data supports that or not. I do not know school or district means.
], my school has 17 students in the 99th percentile based on SI Index and it had 6 NMSF last year.