@OHToCollege I emailed the college board several months ago and the state reports will not be released until late summer/early fall. By then we will already have the NMS info, so this info will be too late to be helpful.
Thatâs what I figured. But this is the only way one can get as close to predicting state cutoffs as one can. The data is quite pure for each stateâs student performance in various sections, un-muddled by this concordance crap.
@suzyQ7 hello again, I havenât gotten anything further on the PSAT front from the HS. Just to reiterate what I know, there were 5 students at 224, 2 students with higher scores and another 3 students between 220 and 223.
The school usually generates 20-25 commended and 2-3 SF which does not bode well for NJ students!
SuzieQ7 nothing official but here is my exchange with Art at Compass last month.
Art Sawyer says:
May 12, 2016 at 1:29 pm
NMSC had to do some knot twisting in the past because they wanted to use a Writing score unpolluted by the essay. Now that the essay is not a part of the 1600 score, things should be simpler. The two most likely candidates seem:
- They use the SAT Total score (400-1600) based on a concordance of the old standard. Depending on how they do this, Iâd expect somewhere in the ballpark of 1360-1380 as the confirming score.
- They feel the need to keep the weighting of CR and W as with the SI. Since EBRW is an equal weighting of reading and writing, the standard could be M + 2xEBRW and about 2020-2060.
I have not yet heard how they are leaning. For students who took the old SAT, I expect the standard to remain at about 1960 (although you do need to multiply the writing skills subscore by 10). Most NMSFs are able to meet the confirmation bar. I think you know this, but Iâll mention it for any others â the confirmation score is a national standard and is not driven up or down by the studentâs own PSAT score or the cutoff for the studentâs state.
Thanks @MomNJof2. It would be interesting to know if there were more than 25 commended at the 209 commended score this year. Some schools make a big deal out of commended and announce it publicly, but clearly some schools do not. 5 students at 224 is really high! Hopefully its an anomaly at your school in NJ - I would think your child is a lock at 224 though, based on the detailed analysis from Compass Prep.
Hey guys! So do yâall think a 215 is definitely out of the range in Texas? And does your score have to be higher than the cutoff or can it be equal to it to be an NMSF?
I really shouldâve listened to my parents and taken this test more seriously 
@suzyQ7 they do not announce anything until the official lists in September. I have checked the website of another local school that has been much earlier in announcing commended students in the past - but they havenât put up any announcements this year. Must be all the confusion over the new scores!
Itâs never too late @neoking! Better late than never they say. 215 is unlikely to make NMSF in TX, most predictions are at 219.
@MomNJof2 âŠSo do you think NJ cutoff will be at a 225 or higher? If so that makes me super nervous about the Texas cut off being higher than a 221. I donât want to get my Sâs hopes up but we are starting to visit colleges and they donât seem to know anymore that what us parents do about the NMSF cut off.
@Tgirlfriend I really trust Art at compass prep. He has an amazing amount of data and has done a ton of analysis. Testmasters has the actual Texas data. Both have predicted 219⊠I would feel very comfortable with a 221 in Texas!
@suzyQ7 âŠthank youâŠI need the positive reinforcement. I start to feel a little bit comfortable then I see a post about different scores being super high and tend to freak out again. Just trying to hold on until September. I sure hope that some of the home school parents share the information they get from CB about NMSF with all us public school parents. My husband told me if I didnât have something to worry about then I wouldnât be happy. Not true at all but I am a worrierâŠugh.
Guys,
I think NMS has published their updated Annual Report for the Class of 2015. It has a last updated date of 5/24/ 2016, but I canât figure out when it was posted to the site. Havenât had a chance to look at it - but I know Iâve never seen this one.
http://www.nationalmerit.org/s/1758/images/gid2/editor_documents/annual_report.pdf
Not sure if its helpful, but another doc to keep us occupied until September!
For those who might be in the running for NMF, take exciting pictures this summer. They solicit pictures from scholars, but I see my kid didnât make it in the link above. (We had nothing terribly exciting to share.)
@suzyQ7 Thanks for posting. It does answer a question that has been raised on this thread several times. The 2015 number of commended is 37,705 and NMSF is 16,307. That is 54K students so NM doesnât cut it off right at 50K. The number of sf exceeded the 16K number.
@tgirlfriend sorry I just donât know if the cutoff will be as high as 225. Itâs just one anecdote at just one school. My D has a 224 and I am not sure she will make NMSF which seems crazy! But I do think the cutoffs are going to skew higher than expected.
@MomNJof2 Your Dâs school seems to be an outlier among all the anecdotes reported here. Hoping it is in fact an outlier.
@CaucAsianDad the SAT math is tricky since on the old SAT you could only miss 5-6 to get 700 so you have to get all medium and easy questions. You only very little time per question so you have to know how to answe question quickly. We did prep for math and got over 700 which we needed. We were in the 650 range
You and me both
Why does Illinois with 37,600 entrants have 735 semi finalist, but Maryland with 41,901 entrants have only 304. That is less than half he number for Maryland than Illinois even though Maryland had 4,301 more entrants. In 2015, the commended cutoff was 201 and you needed a 221 in Maryland to qualify for National Merit. I find it hard to believe that of the 1267 commended students in Maryland (Kids who scored between 201 and 220) more than 400 kids scored a 220. It seems very arbitrary where they draw the line for different states.
@Ldoponce the number of SFâs is apportioned by state based on graduation numbers. Donât look at ratios of SF to entrants because that can be all over the place.