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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]If memory serves me, about 1,500 kids every year score 2400 on the three part SAT.  If you exclude the highly subjective and not particularly correlated writing section, as the Presidential Scolars Program does, you End up with well in excess of 3,000 with 1600 on M+R (this is a rough guess and the actual number could be higher).  SAT's market share has steadily declined, with close to half of graduating seniors choosing the ACT instead.  There is probably some overlap between the two pools, but not much (why would you bother taking the ACT if you got 1600 on M+R SAT?).  So, we can probably assume at least 4,000 kids with perfect (not close to perfect, but perfect) board scores (combined tests) as measured by PSP.  With CA as large as it is (14-15% of US population) and the Top 40 plus ties rule, it is almost a mathematical certainty that the qualifying SAT score for CA was 1600. It is also highly likely for any populous state, with 1580/1590 as the only other likely outcomes.[/quote]
I think some of your estimates might be slightly off.  In 2014, only [i]583[/i] students in the entire nation scored a perfect 2400 on the SAT, not 1500.  https://secure-media.collegeboard.org/digitalServices/pdf/sat/sat-percentile-ranks-composite-crit-reading-math-writing-2014.pdf

Here is specific data on 2014 CR+M scores (excluding writing): https://secure-media.collegeboard.org/digitalServices/pdf/sat/sat-percentile-ranks-composite-crit-reading-math-2014.pdf  [b]1,922 scored 1600[/b].  To get a pool of 3,000 Presidential Scholar Candidates (the approximate number named), you'd need to include scores of 1580, 1590, and 1600.  Admittedly that's a national number, so it does not necessarily prove or disprove what's happening in CA or MD or any other state.  But given that 452 Candidates were named from CA, I'm pretty confident that not all scored 1600.  If they had, then CA would be supplying roughly 25% of the 1600 scores for the entire nation, which is significantly more than CA's share of the national population (only 12%).

As an aside, it always amazes me how girls score so much lower than boys on the SAT.  Girls represent &gt;50% of the SAT test takers, but there are more boys than girls at every score from 1600 all the way down to 1190.  It's not until 1180 that girls start to post more scores.  And that same pattern applies in both math and reading when you look at each in isolation, although girls catch up to boys faster in reading than in math.  It's only in the writing section that they remain roughly even.  http://research.collegeboard.org/content/sat-data-tables[/quote]

PP here.  Thanks for the correction on my estimate of 3,000 perfect M+R SATs to the 1,922 that you report.  I believe that the right comparison is between the 1,922 and roughly 1/2 of the Presidential Scholar's nominees, because roughly half qualified based upon ACT scores.  Let's gross the "perfect board score" up to 3,000 for this analysis to account for the ACT component.  And here is why the CA cutoff must be 1600.  If you take the [b]Top 40 plus ties[/b] methodology that they use, it must mean that the 41st person must have had the same score as the 40th.  In the hypothetical case that the 40th person scored 1590 or lower, then that would mean that 39 students or less scored 1600.  This would then imply that CA had 39 of the 3,000 "perfect scores" or 1.3% versus 12% of US population.  Even if you use the 1,922 pre gross up number, it would only represent 2.0% of recipients.  1600 as a cutoff is the only way to get the math to work.[/quote]

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