State reports from previous years didn’t include SI scores either. In the recent past, they included the national and state average scores for all three subjects, as well as state specific scores for how many kids hit each 5 point bracket (75-80, 70-75, etc).
@PAMom21 I know - it was kind of annoying to see on last year’s state report that they didn’t total it all up. Why do they have to make it so difficult for us parents to figure out if our kid made NM or not LOL.
@PAMom21 the difference this year is that they might not break out reading and writing separately. They might just include EBRW scores, and math scores. Therefore some info would be lost when we are trying to figure out SI because EBRW is a combined score.
Actually, wouldn’t that make it a bit easier to make predictions? Going from 3 unrelated scores to 2?
I woke up early this morning (school has me wired like this, sadly) and thought it would be interesting to see how my state’s (Illinois) cutoff has compared to the national 99th percentile in years past. After some Excel magic, the Illinois cutoff over the past 5 years has been on average two points over the national average. However some years it has been as low as the 99th percentile or up to 4 points higher than the 99th. With this would it be reasonable to assume you need a 207 (+/- 3, obviously) to make the cut? Obviously, this also assumes that the SI percentiles are accurate. Am I a lunatic?
Also, when looking at the data I noticed that there seems to be a lot of compression in the 98th percentile. Past years had ~10 scores in the 98th, while this year only has two. I think that people need to take this into account when making predictions.
(I would attach the graph if I could, but CC isn’t being too friendly)
I used tinypic and it showed graph but got a CC warning later.
Live vicariously 
The difference is that in the past PSAT score was the S.I. @pamom21
So the state report will not be useful this year unless it shows SI percentile.
Ah yeah, I see what you are saying. I was thinking that having writing and CR combined would be more helpful, but only in the 38+38 format, not the 760 format. Trust me though, the overall data wasn’t entirely helpful in years past in the old format either. It didn’t keep us all from speculating though. The best piece of data was and will be that commendation cut, if they still let that one out of the bag in April.
Unfortunately that is very low cut-off. I mean 207 for IL. In Illinois I hear that many children has scored very high 220+ in Illinois. Only a total of about 699 or so NMSF from Illinois. So, one has to basically score higher than 699 children in Illinois. I am keeping my fingers crossed with my daughter who has 218. None of the statistics (including concordance which is more stringent with 215 predicted cut-off for Illinois) will make any sense given the fact that the scores are very high for many students this year. My daughter though had a perfect Math (760) she got only 710 (Reading+writing) which put her in index of 218.
@WGSK88 same scores as for my son on math/reading/writing & an SI of 218 - in NY - I think you are in a little better shape in IL - with past & predicted cut off. Good luck to your daughter!
And I still haven’t received my scores yet.
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You might be correct! I think it depends on the intervals (+10 would be much better than +40, for instance) but it is simpler just to work with two scores than three. And actually, for MN at least, the real challenge was figuring out how the math scores affected the 214 SI and I predict that this will be an issue again.
@wgsk88 We know that traditionally the ~700 Illinois NMSF have done about two points better than the 99th percentile on average, just because some kids scored very high, as some do every year, doesn’t mean that Illinois kids somehow improved a ton while no other states improved.
@payn4ward all you need to do is double the combined R&W and add the math then drop the zero to get the SI. The components will be there.
@Jay12321 I am sorry I didn’t state that only IL children scored high. I can only vouch for the fact that what I know from other children in Illinois whose scores are high. For example, my daughter’s School which usually has about 13 to 15 children as NMSF every year, this year she told me one of her friends already found out that almost 14 (he has not even covered the entire school yet - 1/4 of the school) has scored 218 or better including few perfect scores. This is what makes me feel that cut off might be higher than 218 in Illinois. Again one has to just wait out and not fall for any statistics. I was also told that scores being high this year not because of children are smarter than from last year but the test was too easy this year. I was pouring lot of statistics initially and now after finding out many high scores, I feel that cut off is going to be high in all the States.
More questions about SI and Total Score new PSAT
From Q&A of this link http://blog.prepscholar.com/whats-a-good-psat-score-for-2015
Bonnie Gillis
1/11/2016, 9:38:54 AM
I am curious why your estimation of the state indexes will go down so much from last year. How did you determine it?
Reply to Bonnie Gillis
Rebecca Safier
1/15/2016, 4:37:33 AM
Hi Bonnie, the new Selection Index isn't any lower or less rigorous, per se
And from this link http://blog.prepscholar.com/psat-score-needed-for-national-merit-scholarship
Both Rebecca and Lauren from Prep Scholar ASSUME “the new Selection Index isn’t any lower or less rigorous”. So that ones can use Cutoff results from last year (2015) to estimate cutoff for this years (2016). Math is a little bit quirky,but I found simpler way to save time
-
2015 TX cutoff is 218. Rebecca tried to convert to SI of 218 in 2015 TO NEW SI in 2016
SI * 0.945 - then for 2016 TX SI cutoff would be : 218 *0.945 = 206.1 (please skip 0.1, then you have 206) -
2015 TX cutoff is 218. Lauren tried to convert to SI of 218 in 2015 TO NEW Total Score in 2016
SI * 6.334 - then for 2016 TX TS cutoff would be : 218 * 6.334 = 1380.8 (scale up, then you have 1381)
************************* note: TS: Total Score
Students from other states can use these above methods to calculate points needed for 2016 NMF (in both SI and Total Score) for your own personal preferences, or use vice versa
I don’t know whether Rebecca and Lauren are close to their estimate 2106 cutoff, but I like their Math assumptions and their ideas how SI works
@dallaspiano Texas cut off for Class of 2016 was 220. Just in case you are relying on their estimates.
Thank. So Rebecca and Lauren need to correct their blogs
@BocaDroneMom - where did you get that info? It seems unlikely that a school with 2 NMSF last year would have 40 students in the top 1%. Either the information is wrong or this is more fuel for the conspiracy theory. I vote for conspiracy theory.
My daughter has an SI of 222 in Connecticut. Last year CT’s cut-off was 220 (same as Texas). Predictions if this is good enough for NMSF? thanks!