Just a hunch, the ratio of commended students to SF for a state may influence SI cutoff from prior years. For example, OH had 1040 commended students with 202 cutoff for nationally commended and 618 SF with a SI cutoff at 215. Higher the number (thus ratio) of commended vs. SF quota for the state, greater is the influence of all those commended students on the SI cutoff for the state. Trying to gauge the pressure commended students exert on the SI cutoff for the state. Of course, adjusted for reverse pressure in the opposite direction for the scale to have changed from 240 max to 228 this year. Thus, NJ with 2479 commended students wanting to be among the 540 SF exert upward pressure on the prior yearâs cutoff (225), while reverse compressed by the distance 225 is from max 228 SI. Just a thought for the mathematically inclined.
@SLparent, update from NJ. Twin DDâs both got 219 SI - DD1 is 1440 / 219 and DD2 is 1460 / 219. Both probably 2 points short of NMSF, but proud dad regardless
I think any state with increasing immigrant (esp asian) population will see cutoff scores going higher every year. TX has huge influx of immigrants last few years.
@srk2017âŠdo you think Texas has had a lot of Asian immigrants in the past few years?
Well, there was one in this thread.
robincorn #2390:
PA last year was 217. Not sure what the percentiles would predict for PA. 210? That probably wouldnât yield 3 from this school. (Granted, not much of a difference, especially from a school with not too many NMSF.)
Regardless, itâs clear that most of the anecdotes so far imply higher cutoffs than the percentile tables. The only way to argue that cutoffs should be lower (i.e. percentile based) is to argue that thereâs serious selection-bias in the reporting of these anecdotes. Deciding how much is selection bias (Iâm sure thereâs some), and how much is âdataâ, is really just a judgement call.
For example, maybe the most interesting part of what I quoted above is that robincorn sounded almost reluctant (?) to post, presumably because her son (and her school) had lower scores than what most are posting here. (Robin can comment if sheâd like.) So I think there is some selection bias⊠How much - remains to be seen.
Personally, Iâd just like to get more of these anecdotes, as itâs probably the most useful (possibly biased) data that we can getâŠ
Every time I come back to this thread I think Princess BrideâŠâSo clearly I cannot choose the wine in front of you!â I really need to turn away and wait for SeptemberâŠwith fingers crossed for my daughter.
@LadyMeowMeow Regarding your post #2348 - Nothing was miss interpreted from the counselor from my daughterâs school. Initially the GC told me that 12 scored exactly 218 and 33 students 215 or above. Then I didnât understand thinking that 12 children scored 218 or higher. So, I specifically asked her the question. Then she responded that 12 children scored exactly 218 as my daughter (inclusive) and 10 scored 219 or higher. My daughter knew a kid who had perfect score in PSAT (he also aced SAT/ACT!),
My daughter school has been consistently churning out very good number of NMSF"s. I hope it stays the same this year with 22 coming out of her school. Yes, I am being selfish here! I honestly will be happy if more comes out as well so that IL cutoff is less than 218. But based on wide reporting of high scores, I am keeping my fingers crossed as it might not be 218 but 219 for IL.
If one or 2 high end schools like Illinois Math & Science (IMSA) institute from Aurora.IL (if some one gets their averages) we can closely gauge. They churned out 63 NMSF"s in 2016.
More anecdotal info. NJ public high school, about 1200 kids. School is considered high performing but only produces 2-3 SF per year, plus 20-25 commended. Average SAT is about 1770.
This year, there we two scores at 225 and up, 5 scores at 224 and 3 scores from 220-223. Notice the clumping at 224.
Last year the cut off was 225 for NJ and unfortunately this does suggest a similar cut off this year, unless this class outperforms prior ones and we get 7 SF or more.
Test masters predicted a lower cutoff of 220 but based on this small sample that seems too low.
@MomNJof2, hard to tell in NJ as 1 additional wrong answer tilts the SI distribution at my DDâs HS, also high performing, which has seen anywhere from 2-6 NMSF year to year - total including Commended is fairly consistent at 8% of class. That said, I agree that Testmasters NJ prediction seems low.
Also, did results you are referencing come from GC?
@MomNJof2 â thanks for sharing that info!! Impressive scores. Just wonder if you might know if students typically prep for the PSAT or not there? Adopted the common core? Thanks!
@MomNJof2 that is impresive for a school that has 2 or 3 NMSF previously. It will go up this year, still it appear high cutoff state SI not coming down? Anything special about NJ, did they have common core for class of 2017. As far as I know, at least in my school in CA, common core for 2017 kids not adopted.
Thanks for sharing @momnjof2 !
Previously, we had not seen a ton of 224+ in NJ (based on @slparent): (3 out of 9 before your new numbers):
hades321 225 1500 NJ
momnjof2 224 1500 NJ
shiryc 224 NJ
fambrughini 221 NJ
chembiodad 2@ 219 1440 NJ
cbow17 212 NJ
ro2400 211 NJ
realtwinkie 208 NJ
Your new data adds 2 225s and 4 224s, so 9 out of 15, now.
Dam*, I hope the cutoff is not so high.
@WGSK88 I believe you didnât misinterpret anything. I was using you as an example because it seemed to be about the best example going! Iâm very grateful for the details youâve given us to work with.
My larger point was that even when things seem like facts to some people, itâs not irrational for others to withhold their judgment. We donât know your GC the way you do, we didnât have the interactions you did, and we may wonder how the conversation went, or whether there was an honest mistake made.
I also wonder if, in previous years on CC, there were preliminary speculations along these lines about the cutoffs, and how the anecdotal evidence was presented then?
@Tgirlfriend - Yes, lot of asians moved to Dallas & Houston over last decade and lot of their kids are in high school now Look @ the Coppell high school stats. I lived in TX before and I still have family there. I also heard lot of SAT coaching centers!
Was wondering whether anyone has similar anecdotal information on California schools? At my daughterâs school, she knows of one student with a score of 1500 (donât know SI), another with 1480 (donât know SI), and my daughter, who received an SI score of 221 (38, 38, 34.5). The school typically has 3-4 NMSF out of a class of about 800 students at this public high school near Los Angeles.
Folks have asked for instances in which a schoolâs or districtâs NMSF numbers have declined. Here are two:
Number of National Merit Semifinalists:
Year Redwood HS (CA) Tamal Pais Union High School District (CA)
2012 3 7
2013 5 9
2014 3 9
2015 5 8
2016 0 1
As you can see, patterns are made to be broken. For this year (2017), itâs possible that there will be a number of schools and districts like those above, that will receive far fewer NMSFs (perhaps because other schools did PSAT test prep to increase the NMSF count at their schools). Just a thought . . .
Hereâs the link: Lack of religious identity prevents cultural literacy â Redwood Bark
@srk2017âŠdo you think that will make the cutoff in Texas higher than Testmaster 217?
@LadyMeowMeow - I just did some searching, and was looking through some threads from last year. There was clearly a lot less uncertainty. It seems like âthis was the cutoff last year, will it be the same, a point higher, or a point lower?â I donât think anyone was canvassing GCs to get a sense of how everyone didâŠ
Hereâs a thread where everyone posted their score:
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/sat-preparation/1716141-report-your-2014-psat-score-here-juniors-only-p4.html
I guess we could aggregate that, and see how that compares to @SLparent 's list.
@Tgirlfriend - I donât have any scores to report from TX. My guess for CA is 219-220 and for TX 217-218. I believe TX enrollment #s are going higher every year so that may compensate the asian competition 
At least in my case, @VABogart , I was looking for cases where this yearâs juniors had a lower SI % equivalent to last years based on the understanding scores report (since people want to trust that report as produced by CB).
For example, texas 220 last year was the 4th or 5th 99%. This year, the 4th or 5th 99% is 209/210. Do we see alot of anecdotal evidence from parents or GCs that most texas scores are lower than 209/210 here? No, we saw this:
@mphill1tx: mentioned GC said: this year - "15 between 210-218 "