Reply to National Merit Semifinalist Cut-off Scores for High School Class of 2016

Forum Index » College and University Discussion

Reply to "National Merit Semifinalist Cut-off Scores for High School Class of 2016"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Why are there different cutoffs for different states? The test is a national test.

Is this regional affirmative action in practice?[/quote]

If a national cutoff score is used, most of the winners will come from the high cutoff states - NJ, MD, CA, and Mass. You will see many states with no NMSF. [/quote]

[b]So kids are penalized for where they live?[/b] Sounds like affirmative action to me.

Seems like this policy hurts URMs as well.

http://freakonomics.com/2014/04/04/not-so-national-merit/

"Troublesomely, I also found that states with larger minority populations tend to have higher cutoffs."

Looks like the policy is designed for flyover whites. 
[/quote]

This discussion happens every year. I wouldn't characterize it as kids are being "penalized" per se but state based cutoff approach has inherent sense of unfairness. Keep it mind, however, resources available to kids vary widely state-to-state and district-to-district. Some states just don't have educational resources to match high cutoff states. Also, the national cutoff approach will result in NMC losing its national appeal since most states will become non-players.  [/quote]

every year it seems that education in this country is becoming more about social engineering over finding and nurturing excellence.[/quote]

Asians will make up at least 90% of the NMSF if there were national cut off.[/quote]

What's wrong with that? Are you saying they didn't earn it? That it is a great eastern-hemisphere conspiracy? [/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