If there is this much with the PSAT, I shudder to think of how chaotic the March SAT will be. Honestly the scoring system, delaying of scores, limited information is all too suspicious. I read in earlier posts that CB sent access codes that didn’t even work to some, and someone’s school said that CB is still scoring tests?? Doesn’t anyone else find this weird at all, or am I just being paranoid?
Are there any benefits from being commended or is it just sort of a title?
It’s kind of unfair how students in states like Delaware are confident in their 1300-range PSAT score and I’ve already accepted the fact that I won’t be a semi-finalist with my 1460, just because I happen to live in CA. But I guess that’s why they say life isn’t fair. In the pursuit of equality, someone else always has to suffer in order for another to benefit.
@JuicyMango I don’t understand; why can’t College Board just make it the 99th percentile nationally rather than the 99th percentile of individual states?
what makes you sure you will not be a semi-finalist in California with 1460? Intuition? or you have looked at the statistics?
@JuicyMango I wouldn’t give up hope yet. I took a look at the concordance tables and noticed something odd. Maybe someone has already pointed this out. Among the highest scores one would expect the finest granularity because that’s where there’s the most at stake - scholarships, Ivy admissions, etc. But it’s among the highest scores where you see the coarsest granularity, e.g. same 2015 score corresponds to 3 scores on the 2014 PSAT (so 3 point diff for the same 2015 score). And then from about 1380 and below, it’s either a 2 point or one point gap, an odd rare 3, until you get to 700, where they had to flatten things out to make the data fit.
Given what’s at stake in the highest ranks, I can imagine the only reason to do this is if CB doesn’t have enough high scores in 2015 to fill out their top 1% and had to lower the bar (increase the grain size) to have a more populated 1%.
If anyone can imagine a different reason, would be interested to know.
For this and other reasons, I suspect the CA cutoff will be somewhere in 210-214 range.
@juicymango - this article makes the same point: http://freakonomics.com/2014/04/04/not-so-national-merit/
Not-So-National Merit. And you can input your score here: http://acadiumscholar.org/
to get gratification knowing you would be an NM scholar semi-finalist in nearly all other states. I think the NM intentions are somewhat laudable (let’s cheer on hardworking students everywhere in the US) but perhaps the states with the much lower percentiles should have an adjustment so that some students are recognized but perhaps less in terms of the percentage of overall population than the higher achieving states. But I really doubt any change will be made without a huge reaction from a large cross section of the US or some type of lawsuit about how this is affecting college admissions or something critical in the process where some federal funding or support is at stake. As I lawyer though I doubt that is likely but we are seeing lots of change over time in policies and at some point it might trickle down to this area. Sorry I just can’t be too hopeful it will be addressed in a way that will work for you this year. But do please take away that you have a GREAT score and should feel proud - you should be commended and you can include it on your academic resume!
Could someone explain why each state has a different cutoff? It can’t be simply “Let’s give students everywhere a chance to shine.” I just can’t figure out how it is fair, especially when the SAT does nothing of the sort.
@ananyadoodles A little bit of intuition and a lot of insight from intelligent people who have estimated based on various statistical factors, but maybe I should be a bit more optimistic.
@Athena17 I really hope your right…a 217/228 SI just seems to low for CA imo, but anything can happen.
@CA1543 Thnx for the link! I am definitely proud of my score, and I’ll probably get commended which is nothing to cry about. Hopefully things change so that it truly is a “national” merit test.
@ambitionsquared Honestly, the state you are in shouldn’t and doesn’t matter. I have cousins living in a low cut-off state, and they take CTY classes to make up for “lack-luster” schools there. They all scored higher than me and definitely don’t seem to need the extra advantage they get due to their fortunate geographical location.
I’m guessing that NM is state cutoff instead of national because NMSC wants to level the playing field with geographic diversity. Not every state has equal education systems, and it’s ridiculous to suggest that students in a state like Mississippi take private classes in order to get the same education as students in say, Massachusetts. I’m guessing this is why boarding school NM cutoffs are so high: top-notch education of (mostly) wealthy kids.
Of course, this current system ignores problems with diversity WITHIN states, but more restrictions on semifinalist location would further rile people up (Texas top x% rule tries to remedy this I think).
It isn’t fair, and that’s rough, but it’s their ballgame. On the one hand, I live in PA in one of the worst performing schools in our local area. The opportunities are NOT the same across my county, let alone the whole state. But on the other hand, my kid is benefiting from the broken system, and I can’t not be grateful for that. My kid made the cut in most states, but not all. And not CA, so I feel for you @JuicyMango. Wish we could share.
College admissions in some of the top schools work the same way. You can get in with a lesser profile if you are from an obscure location. Colleges love to boast how many different states are represented.
@JuicyMango
As has been mentioned, the preliminary concordance tables everyone is going off of are artificially inflated, and they don’t show proper correlations. Your 217 could very likely get NM in CA.
I just don’t understand why CA has a high cutoff. It is known for a mediocre schooling district and (I forget the source) has one of the lowest IQ averages in the nation. Maybe collegeboard would counter that states with more wealth are likely to score higher. I would respond that since the new SAT allegedly blurs class distinctions (removing vocab for example), all students would have equal chance to score high regardless of income level.
@ambitionsquared I’m guessing that CA is high because of the high population. Scores need to be higher to weed out the most people possible because you have more people in each bracket.
ETA: Though the SAT has come a long way from “oarsman-regatta,” I’m not sure that this new format will help much, especially with the longer passages of lit in confusing syntax/diction. The ACT (which is similar to the new SAT) is also correlated with family income:
http://act.org/newsroom/data/2013/states/pdf/LowIncomeStudents.pdf
@ambitionsquared 13% of the U.S. population lives in CA. .
@loquatical I’m not saying that higher income students have the same chances of scoring well on the new §SAT as low income students. I’m just saying that is the message that the collegeboard has claimed, and if they truly believed their own assertion, they would set the same standards for all states regardless of economic differences. Sometimes I think of moving to Iowa to get nms and appeal to colleges’ desire for geographic diversity… But then I realize that nothing is worth giving up CA weather for lol.
@mnpapa29 I personally believe that population size shouldn’t factor into cutoffs, but I’m obviously biased haha.
@ambitionsquared
“Could someone explain why each state has a different cutoff? It can’t be simply “Let’s give students everywhere a chance to shine.” I just can’t figure out how it is fair, especially when the SAT does nothing of the sort.”
I’m pretty sure it’s nothing more than that, like affirmative action.
Even though I work my bottom off, I’m Asian and from a middle class family. Some disadvantaged minority student is probably going to take my place at the school I want to go to with sub par credentials.
Same with nmsf. A student with a lower score than you might take your place. That’s just how it works even though it doesn’t seem fair 
@ambitionsquared I think you’d miss the in-state tuiton for UCs the most 
NMSC is a private organization and geographic location isn’t a protected class so there’s nothing that anyone can do about it. If NMSC wants to keep the proportional system, so be it.
I do think one alternate explanation for the coarse granularity at the top is that the SI is what is finely granulated, because it needs to be for NM. Note the SI is directly computed from the test results. But the SI and the 1520 score can be linked in whatever way CB wants. Because in the PSAT the 1520 doesn’t really mean anything other than a rough calibration of how you did. So maybe they inflated the top just for this PSAT as PR move, to keep people from freaking out and bailing from the SAT to the ACT this spring. And the first 2016 SAT will have the real score calibration.
Population had nothing to do with the high cutoff in CA, since the number of winners is proportional to each state based on number of high school students. California has some extremely competitive schools and a lot of kids that prep hard for the PSAT. Think Silicone Valley high schools and lots of hard working Asian kids.