@flatKansas The Texas A&M “National Scholar Invitational” was sent by snail mail.
@TxMum2…@BunnyBlue. We got a National Scholar Invitational invite from Texas A&M through snail mail and email. It doesnt say anything about PSAT score that I can see. Holding in Texas with a SI 221.
@mamelot I disagree that universities respond quickly. I think the only reason that they are saying that they are dropping the essay is that it is now optional for both tests. I don’t think they have really cared for the essay for a while, but since the SAT required the essay, they went with what they had.
I think they are going to take the new SAT w/o issue. How they convert the scores? Clueless.
@thshadow My dd has only taken the March test (all her other sittings have been subject tests and she is taking math 2 on Sat). Her scores are similar to your dd’s and I am not going to have her retest. She might bring her score up 30, maybe 40, pts b/c it is doubtful that she won’t make a few careless errors and won’t run out of time for a question or 2. It is just not worth putting her through the stress of it for such a low gain. The harshness of the curve is just going to work against aiming for a really top score.
A number of schools have already posted that they will use the concordance tables. Whether they convert it based on 3 section scores or just 2, I don’t know.
@itsgettingreal17 That is the question I would like to know the answer to, b/c dd’s scores do not convert equivalently. only her converted 2 pt score and the ACT match.
@thshadow: the CompassPrep people recommended not looking at the User Group percentiles for SAT given what happened on the PSAT. Sticking to concorded results is supposed to be consistent with what the colleges are advised to do so that’s going to be the best plan conditional on taking the SAT. The reason I brought up User Group percentiles is that the entire argument for “inflation” with the PSAT was that the percentiles (both National Rep. and User Group) were inflated relative to (preliminary) concorded percentiles. That doesn’t seem to be the case with the SAT . . . .or is it? I’m not even looking at National Rep. That doesn’t apply to the group of kids on this site. It’s User Group which are expected to be accurate. As I mentioned before, D3’s 1500 is a 98th User Group and a 98th-99th concorded so we really can’t say that the User Group percentile at her score is inflated. I don’t know about other scores. For your D, A 1470 concords to a 2110 (old) /32 (ACT), as you know. So she’s somewhere between 97th and 98th, according to the concordance. What is her reported User Group percentile? Is there another way to look at this?
Totally understand the quandary about ACT vs. another SAT. No harm in taking it twice and there may even be the opportunity to superscore depending on admission policy. She already has an ACT equivalent - and a great one! - from the concordance tables for what it’s worth.
@Mom2aphysicsgeek It’s not the same for my daughter either but the difference is only 10 points (she did much better on CR than writing which is odd for her). I think it depends on how scores are provided to colleges. Do the score reports break down scores as M+CR+W or just M+CR. I’m thinking the latter, but I may be wrong. I’ll probably have DD ask the rep she is meeting with this summer.
@Tgirlfriend Found the quote that TxMum2 had in post #4703. Go to the website listed near the bottom of the “brain card”. Click on one of the session dates. Then you will see the paragraph that has the sentence about the invitation being only for potential National Scholars based on information received from College Board. It doesn’t explicitly state that the information received was the most recent PSAT score.
@Mom2aphysicsgeek at #4722 you could be right - the ACT essay has been optional for years and many selective schools still required it - but of course the SAT essay was automatically a part of that exam at the time. I did notice that schools began to drop the ACT essay requirement BEFORE the new SAT and in at least a few cases that I checked it was due to the problems with the new scoring. However, perhaps anticipating the change to essay-optional in SAT prompted that decision as well. They could have required the essay for both tests, of course, but it seems that schools simply don’t care for the essay section.
If you received an invite to A&M for the two day scholar tour I highly recommend going. Full disclosure, I’m Class of 95 so I’m a little biased 
Obviously A&M has a strong alumni presence here in Texas but they have active alumni groups in countries all over the world. When visiting Sydney, Australia a few years back I was worried I’d miss seeing the last A&M UT Thanksgiving Day football game. I just went online, looked up the local Aggie club & they invited me to join them at an Aggie owned pub to eat Thanksgiving lunch & watch the game with them. It is a huge school, which can seem overwhelming, but we are a loyal bunch & it will provide you with life long connections. I’m glad that my D has decided to attend A&M(even though she has accused me of just wanting to vicariously relive my youth)
On test re-taking: for the PSAT, S got 720 R&W and 740 Math. For the March SAT, S got 730 R&W and 700 Math. Could S score higher on the SAT? Absolutely. Question is whether it’s worth all the prep and study time (and taking time away from studies) to get a higher score. S could probably pull a 750 Math SAT second-time around (and possibly a smidge higher), but not sure the extra 50 points is worth it. Also – he’s not applying to the Ivies, MIT, UChicago, etc. First choice is University of Central Florida, followed by Virginia Tech. B-)
Is my son the only one waiting until he knows he’s NMSF to take SAT?
@VABogart I may have mentioned this awhile back but D contacted her top choices re re-taking the SAT and they all told her that the few points she could possibly go up wasn’t worth it since she was within scholarship range and scholarships are determined after holistic review. I think she could do a little better (her writing score was uncharacteristically low for her and silly child wants a 800 on the math section) but all the standardized testing has been too much this year so she’s done. She will instead work on making the other parts of her app stand out.
@VABogart Have you been able to determine scholarship amounts for UCF? I keep hearing how generous they are but can’t find anything on their website.
Her 1470 reported 98th user percentile, so somewhat consistent.
Her 710 verbal reported 95th user percentile.
Her 760 math reported 98th.
From the checking that I did, it seemed like they were a little higher than the concorded percentiles I could find (though they were from 2 years ago I think https://secure-media.collegeboard.org/digitalServices/pdf/sat/sat-percentile-ranks-crit-reading-math-writing-2014.pdf ). For example, 760 math → 740 old math. 740 old math seems to be 96th percentile. (But reported as 98th user percentile.)
New 710 verbal concords to 1340 old (R + W). If I just look up the percentiles of 670/670 R/W, I see 92/93 percentile. (But 710 verbal reported as 95th percentile.)
@thshadow yeah on the section scores you are correct that they are less consistent. D3’s section scores all say 98th (User) but concord to 96th for each of Reading, Writing, and Math.
Interestingly, her M+CR “concorded” is 98th, not 96th.
I wonder if it gets more funky as you decrease in percentiles. Usually it’s the opposite!!!
It bugs me, as well, that the concordance to ACT is more aggressive than concordance to old SAT. According to all the tables I have, my D3’s 1500 should really have concorded to an ACT of 32, not 33. But . . . I’ll go with the CB estimate (and I hope that her colleges agree!). She’s turning in a real ACT so they may not even look at concorded.
For the individual concorded test scores (R, W, M) we are just looking at how she stacks up against other admitted students at her schools of interest. I gave up trying to reconcile section to total score percentiles a coupla children ago. Even w/o a “revised” test they never made sense to me 8-}
@Proudpatriot – My son is not taking the SAT if he’snot NMSF – on he borderline right now it seems. He took the ACT & has 2 more SAT subject tests to take so that’s our focus for now rather than the SAT. Only interested in doing testing that’s really warranted. Wish we had real SI percentiles.
@Proudpatriot I would have preferred to wait, but marching band season rules out the October test date so I was worried about last minute crunch. He’s grumpy and doesn’t really get why he’s taking it (haha) but he’ll cope.
@Mamelot My dd’s scores do something similar. I think it demonstrates that the majority of kids are skewed in their scoring vs. scoring balanced across the sections.
@itsgettingreal17 I also think S is done with test-taking, unless his final junior grades fall below 4.0 W and he needs the higher score for admission/scholarship purposes. For UCF scholarship money, it looks like it varies, at least for OOS. Knights Achievement/Pegasus Scholarships seem to be tiered, with $11,000/year for the highest and $1500/year for the lowest. Got this info from this website under the “Colleges and Universities” link, which links directly to message boards for each college. Of course, if your D makes NMF, UCF offers a full ride.