These data in the annual report make no sense to me: CA PSAT “entrants” (whatever that means) ~181k with 2,124 SFs – that’s 98.8%ile; so does CA’s SI corresponds to that %ile? If SI is the only parameter for SF selection, then somehow one has to get 2k SFs by applying that SI to the PSAT scores of all “entrants” (or whatever the denominator is). CA graduating senior class is ~400k (online CA paper sources) with US HS graduating class ~3.5M (~11.4%, which more or less conforms to the proportion of 2k out of 16k total SFs). With 400k graduating class (presuming similar # of juniors), 181k “entrants” in CA is ~45% – a fair proportion, I think. Again, I should like to see how one gets 2k SFs by applying CA’s SI to the whatever pool of PSAT takers (and their scores) it is applied against.
@janara, one gets 2K simply by looking at what percentage of total high school graduates is made up of Californians and multiplying that percentage by 16,000 (the number of total sf’s). You can find and verify those numbers and even come up with the exact number. NMSC uses that number (the “allocation”) to find the cutoff by going down the list of PSAT takers in decreasing order of SI till they reach that number. All testers at a chosen SI need to be declared NMSF (they can’t cut in the middle of a group with the same SI) so NMSC will undoubtedly also look at the +1 SI to find whether that total comes closer to the allocation. Either way, one of those two SI’s becomes the cutoff.
@janara to answer your other questions in post #6740:
The 181k “entrants” means that in fall of 2013 181,000 juniors who took the PSAT were eligible for the competition (were US citizens or in a documented process of obtaining citizenship, were in their third year of high school, etc.). That number is going to be smaller than the total number of junior class PSAT takers (which is what CB computes).
For purposes of computing the relevant percentages for NMSF’s in a state you can choose your denominator (total junior PSAT takers vs. entrants) and then stick with it to compare cut-scores over time or among states. Just make sure not to compare, say, CA to a Midwest state like IA or MN where the PSAT/SAT isn’t as popular. One reason for shying away from percentiles when looking at National Merit is not only that NMSC doesn’t use that methodology to determine cut-scores, but also that PSAT popularity varies greatly from state to state. Where the SAT (thus PSAT) isn’t as widely taken, you’ll see lower cut-scores and a higher percentage of total PSAT testers being NMSF. NY, MA, TX, and CA all have a relative preference for the SAT, either due to tradition or state grad standards. And those are states with very high cut-offs.
I’m not totally following the recent convo here but the number of NMSF per state is calculated by 0.5% of the total number of seniors in the state. Regardless of the number of test takers. So if there are 400,000 seniors in CA then 0.5% is 2,000 and that is the approximate number of NMSF for that state. Regardless of how many entrants.
@halfmoon22 that’s a good rule of thumb because there are approximately 3 million (or 3.5 mil? can’t remember) graduating seniors every year and 16,000 is about .5 of that.
^^Oops meant to type .5%
@janara - is there some other question that you’re really trying to get at? NMSC gets 2K for CA by looking at the fraction of graduating seniors (or whatever it is they use) that are in CA, and multiplying that by 60k. It then sets the cutoff so that it can get as close as possible to that number.
As has been stated by many people, percentiles have nothing to do with determining cutoffs. (Though once a cutoff is determined, it can obviously be presented as a percentile.)
Are you trying to ask if the percentile needed to make NMSF is much higher this year than in previous years? It would certainly look that way if you looked at various percentile tables presented by CB - but those tables are not comparable to tables from other years. (I’ve refrained from calling them “nonsense”, though that’s what I’m thinking).
Does anyone know what the numbers next to the kid’s names in the booklet mean? It is like 000 to 999.
I’m guessing it is the code for the intended major that the student provided on the test. There is probably a list on a web page somewhere, but I found this big PDF that has the codes at the end: https://collegereadiness.collegeboard.org/pdf/sat-domestic-code-list.pdf
Thank you Ynotgo! It is exactly that! (At least it worked out for my son!)
It looks like the San Jose Mercury News plans to publish the full list for California here: http://www.mercurynews.com/2016/09/14/national-merit-semifinalists-announced/
The link at the bottom of the article is not working yet, but they have published the full state list online in recent years.
Media in other states may be publishing lists today or this week.
Ohio’s is published on cleveland.com
NMSC released the news that it has released the news! LOL. Hopefully MN local paper will get around to publishing the list. Last year it took them two days.
Edit/Update: The presser says news media received the names on 9/13. So all the media should have access by now.
New Orleans area list: http://www.nola.com/education/index.ssf/2016/09/national_merit_semifinalists_2.html
My son’s HS had half the NMSF that they usually get.
California List is up on http://www.mercurynews.com/2016/09/14/national-merit-semifinalists-announced/
There are 2104 names on the CA list. Glad it takes NMS almost a year to sort their spreadsheet - it took me 60 seconds.
My son’s HS had 4 this year, 3 last year. Prior years were 9, 7, 14, and 8. So I guess 3-4 is the new normal.
D17 is the only one at her school. Last year there was one as well. It’ll be interesting to see the numbers for the larger high schools in the area. Predicting no major changes.
Thanks for the replies. I am trying to figure out the methodology for determining the cutoffs. The cutoffs should be such that the planned # of SFs in each state are selected. With the current cutoffs, to me some major shifts happened in 2015: either several fold higher number of PSAT takers (unlikely) or several fold higher number of high scorers (also unlikely). So what’s the deal withe these cutoffs?
The list of semifinalist for Minnesota is up: http://stmedia.startribune.com/documents/17+MN+Semifinalists-NatlMeritProgram.pdf