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[quote=Anonymous][quote=SAM2][quote]Whether Jeff has endorsed this thread or not, it would appear it has some official status as it is on top of the forum. This space is usually reserved for moderator sanctioned threads.[/quote]

I’m pretty sure no one will ever get confused and think Jeff endorsed this thread, since it’s been emphasized several times in the first three pages that he was not involved in preparing the FAQ. Just to make it unquestionably clear, I’ll add a specific note to the FAQ. Also, this is not the first time Jeff had sticky’ed a FAQ-type thread that someone else drafted: http://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/forums/show/2.page .

[quote]… stats grid is [i]speculative, incomplete, inaccurate [/i]… she is relying own [i]questionable [/i]data which is [i]incomplete [/i]and she fails to cite references with footnotes (Wikipedia style) or even assign years for this data. The fact of the matter is that the grid is [i]incorrect [/i]… and her data is [i]skewed[/i].[/quote]

This baseless criticism is frustrating because I spent a lot of time researching this data and working to check its accuracy. If you think any data points are speculative/incomplete/inaccurate/questionable/incorrect/skewed, then please find and post a link to credible data that is accurate. I’m happy to make corrections, but you’ll need to back up your accusations with some research.[/quote]

Look, I know you put a lot into your research but there are gaping holes and questionable data and if you really want us to take this seriously you need to make it cite where you are receiving your data and equally important what years your data is derived from and if it is an average. You need to specify this for each school and also specify class size in each school. Which brings me to: What years are you referencing for the NMSF, Presidential Scholar Candidates ? It is completely unclear whether these are averages of 2009 & other years - you NEED to state the years and have a footnote which cites each piece of data. Looking at 2009 numbers alone, I find Sidwell 12.5% PSC  and NCS had 12.8% PSC. So I have to assume you are averaging several years of data. Please provide this information. For example, in 2009 Georgetown Visitation had 3 Presidential Scholar candidates, but according to your "research" they had .84% - so are you saying that were 355 students in the senior class? I doubt that. Which brings us to class size. It would be extremely helpful if you provided this for us. Another "oversight" no doubt would be you forgot to list the 1 student at NCS that was a Presidential Semi-finalists? As I have stated before the Presidential Candidates reflect solely top SAT's scores and this is the most important piece of data in terms of college boards scores data at schools. I realize you list the candidates but it is misleading to not at the very least list the score next to the NMSF - because this is your best apples for apples comparison because both of these are derived specifically from Test scores. The Presidential Scholar is a very prestigious honor - far greater than NMS but sadly the recipients receive no scholarship, so many people don't even bother to continue with the process in terms of competing to be the scholar. There is a lot of data on this all over the web, most commonly on the website College Confidential. I urge you to read more about it - students elect to not to put all the time and energy into it because on 130 are named in the country - and there is no scholarship money provided. Really if you are going to list those sort of accolades (there are only 500 PSSM nationwide), you should list the NMF and NM Scholars (did you know that there are 16,000 NMSF and 15 NMF?? And NM Scholars because there are 5 times more NM scholars than there are Presidential Semi-Finalists.

As for SAT scores apparently you are basing your numbers on the Washington Examiner (which is NOT known for accurate fact-checking). The National Examiner was off about the NCS SATs which is the only online data I can find listed on a website. I welcome any other factual pieces of data from school websites but are hard to find. At any rate, it the National Examiner was incorrect about one school, why should we believe it about another school??

I know you have good intentions and I hope you take this a constructive criticism and can fill the holes.

[/quote]

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