Finished treadmill, then added some water to the pool - its going to be in the 80s later this week. Walked by the front door and see a large envelope outside on the porch. Bring it in and the return address is from the College Board addressed to my daughter ! I’m thinking what the heck. Heart jumps up a notch.
Had to decide whether to open it or wait for daughter to get home. Couldn’t wait, so opened it.
And… it was a College Board Official Study Guide for the SAT Subject Tests in US and World History. Forgot she ordered that so she can take the US History Subject Test in May after her AP US History exam.
@DoyleB: “I can assure you that this data set did not include any type of bias toward high scoring students.”
They are definitely reading this forum. Saw some of our comments and wanted to dissuade us from thinking their was bias. Then again, since they are sure there was no bias, that probably adds credibility to their numbers.
@Speedy2019 “And… it was a College Board Official Study Guide for the SAT Subject Tests in US and World History. Forgot she ordered that so she can take the US History Subject Test in May after her AP US History exam.”
I have thought about doing this as well after APUSH exam. Is it worth it? You seem to be on top of things!
@Speedy2019 and @kikidee9 just curious, why would you take the subject exam if you take the AP exam? My oldest didn’t take any subject exams, just the AP exams.
IF you need Subject Tests for college apps, then definitely do the Subject Tests right after the AP exams. You will have already studied the material and be ready to go.
My daughter did this last year with World History. Took the AP exam and got a 5, then took the Subject Test in World History and got an 800. One right after the other. HUGE curve on that subject test.
This year, the AP US History exam is on May 6, and the US History Subject Test is on May 7th (and other dates). Too convenient to pass up those dates.
@Mom2TwoDDs We’ve been to several schools where they said they will not use AP scores for admissions purposes, and they still expect three Subject Tests. I’m kicking myself for not having my kids do the physics test at the same time as the AP test. This year they are doing SAT Chemistry immediately after AP Chemistry.
OK, yes, I’m a bit crazy, but I tried to eyeball the graph (actual file magnified) to count each column. They do all line up with specific scores, except a few slots that appear to be missing from the bottom end, just like either 228 or 227 is missing from the top. Apparently “roughly 10,000” actually equals 8,551 (or something very close). I can post the whole list here if anyone wants it.
I agree with the sentiments about the subject tests. I had my son do them at the end of his Junior year. There were no schools on his list asking for them, but, sometimes you add schools to your list later that want to see them.
Mom2TwoDDs, some of the colleges daughter plans to apply at require 2 Subject Tests, others (Wharton Finance for example) “recommend” Math 2.
I believe it is one price to take 3 subject tests in 1 day. Daughter is scheduled to take 3 tests on May 7th: Chemistry, Spanish and US History. She is taking AP exams in all 3 classes. So will already by studying the material. The tests are all multiple choice, 1 hour long.
That will be 4 Subject Tests done at that point. She MAY take Math 2 in June with the regular SAT. Math 2 is convenient at that point because she will be studying math again for the regular SAT. However, she will probably only do SAT in June if she has a shot at NMSF. She is at 215 in Texas. If testmasters prediction is correct, she won’t make it. So we have to decide what her chances are by Spring / early summer to make a decision.
WRT “biased” sample of testmasters. I agree with others, who speculated that they got the full list for something like that Houston district. They simply used (only) that data in their analysis. Their comment that “this data contains TestMaster students and others” is just a CYA, because of course some kids in that district used them. I suspect they did not add back in any set of their students who had self-reported their scores, because that would just totally mess up the analysis. Also, it makes it easy for them to estimate how many NMSF they would expect - just see how many this school district had in the past.
They didn’t release the exact numbers, and were purposefully slightly obfuscating, because presumably they don’t want their source to get identified (and get in trouble).
But the data is definitely very interesting and useful! And they actually released more details than I thought they would. It seems to me like they’re very likely “correct” - at least they’ve made a good estimate based on the rather large chunk of data they have.
The only way I’d expect them to be wrong (by more than a point or two) is if this school district ends up doing much better than it has in the past (compared to the averages).
Well, it is the case that CB wants scores to be comparable across years (I imagine), so maybe we should have just started there, and ignored the percentile tables completely…
@candjsdad or @dallaspiano If you guys have counted all the numbers - can someone please tell me the mean? It looks to be well below the published expectation of 148.
Texas’ scores intrigue me anyway - their state report shows only 35.2% college ready, which is quite a low number. And yet their NMSF cutoff is higher than average. Quite a disparity between the high and low end there - lots of income inequality could explain it perhaps? I know a high percentage of kids there take the test - maybe that skews the results compared with states where fewer kids take it.
@thshadow It makes sense that the comparison is for one whole school district rather than random test takers plus Testmasters test takers. There has to be a benchmark of how many NMSF to expect. So, now it might be a question of whether this district will get more NMSF this year than in the past.
On a side note, that may or may not skew the data set, a very very very large oil company relocated its headquarters to the Houston area over the last two years. It relocated from Fairfax, VA - one of the most competitive school districts in the country, I believe. Maybe Houston got some additional NMSF in the bargain, but that’s pure speculation.
Let’s try this. Here’s a Google Sheets doc with the data. Again, I took guesses as to which of something like six scores were missing from the bottom range.
So apparently Google Docs links aren’t allowed. How about this: https://■■■■■■/W4lkfV
