So I went back and looked at the Testmasters data that I compiled (See #3006 & #3018). It doesn’t quite fit with the NMSC Commended Cutoff. If you take them at their word, 50,000 students scored a 209 or above out of 1.5 (or 1.6) million qualified test takers. That equals slightly more than 3% of the population. Looking at the Testmasters data, it looks like that group underperformed the national result. Only 2% of that population scored a 209 or above. To get over 3% of their population you’d have to drop all the way down to a 200. Their comments about the difference between their low range on their Commended estimate of 200-210, but their choice of 210 for SF status on low scoring states may suggest that they’ve already taken this into consideration, but I wonder . . .
@whitespace congratulations!!! Thank you for answering my questions. I will watch the other CC forums. Good Luck at school in August. Please keep updated on how things are going for you.
@PAMom21 Thank you for the information. I appreciate it greatly. I will watch all the forums I can find on the CC.
@getttingschooled I have read several of the forums on National Merit however some of them are extremely old and with everything changing this year that concerns me. Class of 2017 has several HUGE changes going on. From application dates to FICA deadline changing according to the colleges we have attended already this year. It is a full time job trying to stay up with all the date changes for this class.
Given the now known 209 commended number, can any of our Numbers People take a look at Ohio and Indiana? The test masters numbers seem low to me given the much higher commended cut off this year. This is not based on any numerical analysis…lol…strictly gut reaction. 
A -7 on the new test is 7 WRONG. A -7 on the old test was 6 WRONG. 6 wrong on the new test would clear 222 in most configurations. This is far from a non-trivial difference at this level. It is much easier to get 7 wrong than to get 6 wrong (or to get 4 wrong instead of 3 wrong, etc.) 7 wrong is still 17% more wrong than is 6 wrong, so if this were the cutoff, it would be an easier cutoff to meet. The equivalent cutoff to -7 on the old test would be 6 wrong on the new test.
I don’t draw want do draw any conclusions from this about specific cutoffs in specific states. State specific cutoffs will depend upon local factors.
@Felicita check out post #3843 - OH at 218. Don’t remember IN but there was some conver. between that post and this one about IN being high as well.
Man I feel so stupid. I thought I could make it at least to commended status with 203 SI but it’s 209 ;(
@Sandy12345 no reason to feel stupid!!! You are obviously a very capable and intelligent person. That is an excellent score and there are plenty of colleges out there where you will be accepted and thrive if that’s the direction you want to go.
@Sandy12345 I agree. You are not stupid. CB’s info in their packet was way off. In past years you would have been and who would have thought that with top score going down by 12 that commended would go up. It’s a crazy year. Keep up the hard work and you’ll do great!
@Plotinus your example from earlier (post 3925) is 5 wrong and 2 blanks for a total of r=7. That makes 7 non correct answers. (Presumably if the person had tried to answer those two blanks, they would have been WRONG so they played it smart. No incentive to do that anymore so of course anything not correct is going to be WRONG instead of possibly BLANK).
I haven’t compared content all that much but it seems to me that content can be equivalent - including throwing in some level 4 or 5 zingers on both tests - and you’d still find that the new test does a poorer job of distinguishing among the highest students simply because there is no longer a penalty for completely guessing the answers.
@Mamelot
I agree with your points, but there’s a lot more that could be said about what the test is measuring, whether it is measuring what it should be measuring, and whether the new test is a better or worse measure than was the old test.
To me it looks like a test designed to facilitate diversity admissions, but that’s just my personal opinion.
I still don’t get how the SI top possible score going DOWN by 12 made commended minimums go UP. It should have been the other way around.
@takeroftests Test was easier overall and there was no guessing penalty, making it higher scores more common.
Also in the past, you could lose up to 6 SI points for just one question at the top of the scale. I don’t think that’s the case anymore. The score are more compacted. (My son lost 9 SI points on just 2 questions one year.)
@PAMom21 would that be a 235 to a 224, by any chance (or similar)? That’s can happen at the very top with the old test (there was a LOT of room at the top). Will not happen this time given the compression of scores.
@Mamelot…not sure I understand your question? My son had one wrong in each of math and writing his sophomore year, and that cost him 9 SI points. He was only impacted by 5 lost at once (writing), but I believe I’ve seen as many as 6 lost points (80-74) for that first wrong question. My point was just what you clarified there at the end, that this will not happen on the new test. I was responding to @takeroftests comment a few posts up, questioning how the commended score could go up, when the total possible went down.
@PAMom21 so yeah, your son’s SI was up toward the highest percentiles, correct? Sorry I wasn’t more clear - I was trying to point out that a 9 point drop from missing 2 questions wouldn’t happen toward the middle part of the curve, even on the old test. That was all.
Just for the sake of newer readers it bears re-iterating: What’s happened with the new curve is that everything is very compressed at the top. In the past there was a lot of room between the highest cut-off (225) and the max (240) which college board simply didn’t feel was necessary. However, guessing from the SI percentile table they released it’s pretty obvious they did NOT intend the top end to be as compressed as it actually is this time around.
It will be interesting to see if that cut-off drifts down over time. They’d have to introduce some of the things that Plotinus says made the old test a better at distinguishing at that top end. But that might conflict with some of the other goals they have for this test now. So it’s a wait and see. I have two more kids in the pipeline who haven’t taken PsAT yet. We’ll be keeping an eye on this.
Ah, gotcha @Mamelot ! That first year he wasn’t quite so high, but his math and writing were at the top, hence the painful penalties. That darn CR brought him down overall though. Fortunately it was enough to qualify junior year though, so all was well. But yes, you only had those huge hits for missing 1 or 2 questions in each subject. And that appears to be gone now.
Thank you so much! That makes me feel so much better!