Reply to PSAT scores/National Merit

Forum Index » College and University Discussion

Reply to "PSAT scores/National Merit"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Last year's qualifying scores listed here, around page 13.
221 for MD, 219 for VA and 223 for DC.
Apparently won't announce qualifying scores for this year's juniors for sometime.
https://www.nationalmerit.org/s/1758/images/gid2/editor_documents/guide_to_the_national_merit_scholarship_program.pdf?gid=2&pgid=61
[/quote]

I don’t understand why there is a single national cutoff score for a test that calls itself National Merit.[/quote]

I meant “why there isn’t”[/quote]

That's what Commended is.[/quote]

That's pathetic. We "need" to relegate higher scorers to a lower designation to accommodate lower scorers in lower scoring states?

If it's national, it should be national. They should set the SI at 215 or whatever, and be consistent. It's absurd that a NMSF in one state might have missed 20+ questions more than a NMSF in another state. Meanwhile, a flotilla of Commended Scholars in the latter state missed 1 - 3 more questions. Just a lame practice, as is the Presidential Scholar Award for the exact same reason.[/quote]

The answer to why there are different scores per state is because the NMSF award is not primarily about the score. The intention of the program is to distribute the award proportionally across the country, awarding[b] the top students in each state of the nation[/b] (not the top students nationally).

The Commended program does award students on a truly national basis, and the number awarded is not proportional by state. No matter where you live, if you meet the top ~2-3% of scores in the nation, you get the national recognition.

So NMSF is a State level award, and National Merit Commended is a National level award.

"NMSC designates Semifinalists in the program on a state-representational basis to ensure that academically accomplished young people from all parts of the United States are included in this talent pool. Using the latest data available, an allocation of Semifinalists is determined for each state, based on the state’s percentage of the national total of high school graduating seniors. For example, the number of Semifinalists in a state that enrolls approximately 2% of the nation’s graduating seniors would be about 320 (2% of the 16,000 Semifinalists)." 
https://www.nationalmerit.org/s/1758/interior.aspx?sid=1758&gid=2&pgid=1881

So, for example, California has about 13% of the nation's seniors, so they get 13% of the 16,000 semifinalists. They will always get ~2080 semi finalists, no matter what the scores are. Note that this is the number of graduating seniors, not the number of students taking the NMSQT. The cut score for the state is determined by ranking the state's juniors' scores and figuring out what score student number 2080 had, and how many tied with that score and the score just above that until they get to a pool of about 2080 students. Sometimes more, sometimes less depending on the number of ties at that score.

So, locally, VA and MD will always have roughly the same number of SFs each year (~400 and ~300 respectively each year), absent a huge population swing; what the cut score is depends on what the 300th or 400th student scored, then adjusting for ties.

DC is too small to use the percentage of seniors (they'd only be allotted ~15 awards), and too "smart" to use the commended (as other non-states do) because then their percentage of NMSF would be way over the 1% average. So they have to use the top cut in the nation, which usually gets them about 30-50 SF, which usually hits close enough to the 1% goal.[/quote]

Thank you for this explanation (I'm not the pp you quoted, but a different poster that also said I don't like it.)   I still don't like it or think it is right or fair, but at least I know why they do it that way.
It's frustrating-I know someone in Idaho whose kid score far lower than my kid (Virginia), and is a NMSF.   The Idaho kid has not had fewer advantages than my kid-in fact the Idaho family is wealthy.  [/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics