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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]DC
St. Alban’s 5
NCS 2
GDS 1
Sidwell 8
Gonzaga 1
St. Anselm’s Abbey 1
Maret 1
WIS 1

Maryland
Holton 5
Landon 1
Heights 1
Stone Ridge 1
Bullis 2

Virginia
Potomac School 7
St. Stephens/St. Agnes 1
Basis McLean 3
Madeira 1[/quote]

Wow these are pathetic numbers compare to some of the public schools in FX/MoCo. [/quote]

NMSFs are essentially the top 1% PSAT scores of each state.  I can't comment on the MD or VA schools, but by definition there will never be that many coming from DC because the number of HS PSAT test takers is not changing year-to-year and is relatively small...so the distribution by specific school may change, but the total number of DC NMSFs will always essentially be the same (i.e., around 30...the above list doesn't include kids from Walls, JR, Basis and SJC).[/quote]

I find the different cutoffs for different states problematic. DC's cutoff is always equal to the state with the highest one, which this year I think was NJ at 223. Virginia's has fallen to 219 I believe.  West Virginia was 207?

The 223 makes it hard to compare DC numbers with FFX/ Montgomery County students who had it easier this year.[/quote]

DC is the only place where 80% of the schools represented are private.  I am not surprised if that results in a very high cut-off...combination of high income demographic  and again, only 30 kids at any one time in the top 1%.[/quote]

DC has the highest cut-off because there is a rule that DC automatically gets the cut-off of the highest state which this year is New Jersey with 223.  Americans living abroad are given the same cut-off.

It's not because this cohort of DC testers personally scored as the highest in the country. [/quote]

Any idea why that is the rule? Serious Q.[/quote]
Because DC is not a state. Same rule applies to US virgins Island and US students overseas. [/quote]

More likely because each of these areas is so small, they would be allotted an unfairly small number of semifinalists under the general formula. They distribute semifinalists proportionally to states based on the number of graduating students in the state. California gets 13% of the 16,000 semifinalists because it produces approximately 13% of high school graduates nationally. CA is allotted the highest number of semifinalists., not because they did better, but because they have more high school seniors.  https://www.compassprep.com/psat-national-merit-faq/  DC's percentage of national graduates is usually ~0.1%, which would allot them only a tiny fraction of the 16,000 NMSFs, about 16-22 students. By using the highest state's cut off, DC usually ends up with 30-50+ semifinalists. The fact that using the highest state cut off gives DC more semi-finalists than 0.1% of 16,000 suggests that DC's actual cut off would be higher than it is if it were based on the cut score they would have to use to limit it to only 16 semifinalists.

An alternative could have been to use the commended score (lowest score of the top 50,000 students), which is the minimum selection score. No state can have a lower semifinalist cut score (four states have this as the semifinalist score this year, even if that means they won't get their full allotment of semifinalists). But DC would have much too large of a percentage of semifinalists for its size if the commended score were used, because usually DC has around 150-200 commended students (1.25% of the 16,000 instead of the 0.1% under the formula).

Also, to the PP who said "it's not because this cohort of DC testers personally scored as the highest in the country," you are correct about the "because" part, but this cohort in fact did personally score the highest in the country, and they do every year. Otherwise, they couldn't be semifinalists.[/quote]

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