@OHToCollege #1771 – NM could face a problem with low scoring states if there are not enough of them in the 209 plus SI range. What we are seeing IT SEEMS is a massive cluster of testers in the 207-220 range that could conceivably amount to over 50k kids if percentiles are based on the 3.5 national sample and not the 1.7 mill reported. How do you resolve the allocation issue for the low scorers if there aren’t enough of them?
@Pickman, very good. With that score of 1510 (CR+M), you daughter almost got sure-shot at UTD - full tuitions, perks, and $3000 cash each semester . 1510 is considered more than mid range of 99 (right after lowest 99+ slot)
@DoyleB, stand corrected. It’s good to be reminded by a cowboy how an urbanite talks before he thinks!
@Pickmen - by setting the Commended SI cutoff > Lowest Reported SF Cutoff for Poor Performing State.
Brief talk about Georgia. How can Georgia have 2 or 3 times as many SF as previous years. Valid point. 2 observations:
1). My daughters school has tripled its SFs over the past 3 years - but from a much smaller base. Last 3 years, were: 3, 5, 9. School has really gotten behind a PSAT push to boost SF. There were daily prep for all students who scored above 170 last year and thus showed “potential” for SF/commended. This year, I’m expecting 12-15 SFs total at our school.
2). So many data points conflict. SI% table, concordance tables, anecdotal reports, official Cobb data. I’ve elected to go with SI % table. If others want to use Cobb data and extrapolate to all of Georgia and then to the USA, that would be their right. For predictions, we get to choose which of the conflicting data points we want to use. Its just a starting point, until state summary reports come out.
First time poster here. I want to say that you guys are fascinating, and anybody who comes along to try to shame you for wasting time on “trivialities” is barking up the wrong tree. This is a live, interesting question and I appreciate all your speculation & theorizing.
The single most difficult issue dividing the low-cutoff optimists from the high-cutoff pessimists seems to be the Cobb data, specifically the Walton avg of 1453 for the top 100.
Do we know for sure that the 1453 represents the top 100 students? Is it possible that the school just peeled off the top 100 math scores (mean = 740) and the top 100 verbal (mean 713) and then averaged those together?
If that’s what they did, then the school is still impressive but the number of potential NMSF would be lower – you’d lose a lot of kids whose scores are represented on only one side (e.g. Math 750, Verbal 620).
Just a thought.
@dallaspiano, I’ll report one 1520 and one 1510 at daughters school. Don’t know the SI numbers though.
@dallaspiano - yes for schools that look only at CR and M she’s competitive. She’s glad she took the old test as she has it “in the bank” and will be less stressed about taking the new one.
@Speedy2019 - I will repeat what I said earlier in #1481.
If a school has a tradition of producing relatively fixed number (let’s just say 30) of SF from year to year, and has a relatively large contribution to state’s SF candidates (let’s just say >= 5%, so in OH 30 out of 600 odd SF) , we can take the bottom SI score of the 30th student and say with reasonable confidence that the cutoff for that state (OH for my kid) will be >= to the 30th student in that high performing school.
Too bad I don’t have the data to support this hypothesis. Maybe someone of you well connected student/parent can figure this out for your own state. I don’t expect this hypothesis to hold if there isn’t an established tradition of putting out relatively constant number of SF and if the school isn’t a major contributor to the state’s total.
@LadyMeowMeow wrote: “The single most difficult issue dividing the low-cutoff optimists from the high-cutoff pessimists seems to be the Cobb data, specifically the Walton avg of 1453 for the top 100.”
Please see my post 1563 for another example from Oklahoma:
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/discussion/comment/19223746/#Comment_19223746
Applerouth relates similar stories from DC, Seattle, and other Georgia schools, from public and private schools. Other test prep companies are similarly reporting very high scores. It’s not just Walton.
@OHToCollege 1783. The problem I see is this: if there are 2000 spots for low scoring states but they can only be filled by testers there some of whose SIs are as low as 202 0r 203 and there are more than 60k kids in the other states whose SIs exceed 203 or 204 SIs how can you can create a commended line that cuts off at 50k or 55k? But perhaps I’m seeing it wrong.
I have been reading (ok, pouring) through all the data, speculation, analysis, etc. to finally have my picks for our NMSF “draft”. lol…I really appreciate all the time and attention you guys put in. I just found this site after my son took the PSAT and wanted to know how others did. His schoolmates do not talk much about scores…and the GC keeps saying “we know nothing” (think Schultz on Hogan’s Heroes)…so here goes my predictions after reading, looking at cutoffs for past several years, and well… just guessing.
2014 cutoff, predicted 2015 cutoff
Alabama 209 208
Alaska 206 205
Arizona 215 213
Arkansas 204 204
California 223 220
Colorado 215 210
Connecticut 220 217
Delaware 216 212
District of Columbia 225 220
Florida 214 214
Georgia 218 217
Hawaii 214 210
Idaho 208 208
Illinois 215 216
Indiana 213 215
Iowa 208 206
Kansas 213 210
Kentucky 210 211
Louisiana 211 209
Maine 211 209
Maryland 222 216
Massachusetts 223 220
Michigan 210 210
Minnesota 214 212
Mississippi 209 207
Missouri 209 211
Montana 204 203
Nebraska 209 209
Nevada 211 210
New Hampshire 213 212
New Jersey 225 221
New Mexico 208 207
New York 219 220
North Carolina 215 216
North Dakota 202 200
Ohio 215 215
Oklahoma 208 207
Oregon 215 213
Pennsylvania 217 216
Rhode Island 212 210
South Carolina 211 210
South Dakota 202 200
Tennessee 212 211
Texas 220 219
Utah 206 202
Vermont 214 212
Virginia 222 219
Washington 219 217
West Virginia 202 200
Wisconsin 208 206
Wyoming 202 200
@dallaspiano I have heard one 1520 in the Houston area from a public HS that has an academy.
@pickmen said “In any event, I looked at Prep Scholar’s comments section on their PSAT page and it’s quite different from what you see on this thread. Some very high scorer’s with questions but a fair amount too of kids in the low 90% and 80% range FWIW”. I agree with you…I mentioned this in earlier post. I’ll update the 2 tables later when I get a chance.
@OHToCollege Northview High School here in GA would be perfect. Always lots of NMSF (43 last year out of ~450 statewide). Unfortunately they’re in a different county, and I haven’t seen their data yet. But I’m trying.
There are several schools here which produce more NMSFs than Walton - many more in some cases. (See my post 1086). I haven’t seen data from them yet either.
I’m with @Lady MeowMeow (and just because of that name!).
@OHToCollege brought up a similar point - post #1764.
That GA data might be mis-named or mis-calculated. Perhaps time to take another look at it?
I saw the OK example:
“I talked with GC at his school and she said that there are 27 juniors scored over 1400. We usually have 6-8 NMSF every year. Also she mentioned you have to be in 99.5%, top 0.5% not 1% to be eligible for NMSF.”
When I read that the GC said that 99.5% was the cutoff for Oklahoma, I started to doubt the GC and the whole message, including the reported 27 juniors over 1400. As for Applerouth et al, I’d like somebody to publish some real numbers.
I’m going to resurrect @DoyleB’s mystery novel analogy. The first few chapters had me believing the SI% table and the lowered cutoffs, but chapters 4-6 wore down my resistance and the Compass bombshell moved me to the high cutoff (or only slightly lowered) camp. But then the plot twist…@thshadow was a double agent…and he unveils low cutoffs. Oh MY! What a read.
"Brief talk about Georgia. How can Georgia have 2 or 3 times as many SF as previous years. Valid point. 2 observations:
1). My daughters school has tripled its SFs over the past 3 years - but from a much smaller base. Last 3 years, were: 3, 5, 9. School has really gotten behind a PSAT push to boost SF. There were daily prep for all students who scored above 170 last year and thus showed “potential” for SF/commended. This year, I’m expecting 12-15 SFs total at our school."
Per your first point, Walton did do some PSAT prep in classes (such as homework or classwork credit for completing Kahn Academy stuff) and also offered a PSAT prep class after school with Applerouth.
@Pickmen n at #1790. I don’t see what prevents NMSC from using say the predicted 210 cutoff for the commended student and having a low reported SI state like WY or WV to have an SF cutoff set at say 202 to allow them to pick the state’s allotted quota. It’s possible that a state cannot qualify for commended cutoff but still send SF to colleges.
@OHToCollege, hey I’m not disagreeing with you. I understand the Cobb data conflicts with SI% table, possibly with concordance table (but didn’t really try to compare those two).
The concordance tables to me are very “messy”. Concord using TS, or the 3 sections, 2014 to 2015, 2015 to 2014. They all give different results, range of results.
The SI% table is “neat”. Can compare to previous year’s SI% table. Some consistency there. I know it was from a research study instead of actual students which scrambles the neatness somewhat. Definition A/B changes, etc…
Unlike just looking at the Cobb data, CB can see the Cobb data, all of Georgia’s results and the entire nation. I’m going to put my trust in the SI% table and then verify with state summary reports. As Reagan used to say, “trust but verify”.