National Merit Semifinalist 2023 (Plano, Frisco, Jasper: school district, move to, design)

[EDS_]

Originally Posted by TheOverdog

Man, you are seriously all over the place, and making a bunch of assumptions that the data doesn't actually parlay, because no-one has ever done experiments about individual kids because we don't have time machines. In your hypothethical, you just implied that the school matters; otherwise, the hypothetical student would do equally as well in either school (which is actually generally true). Unless you actually meant not any hypothetical student but an upper middle class hispanic or black one. There the school might make a difference in college admissions, just due to the name.





Also, you and EDS both are missing that CA is losing lower and middle class hispanics and blacks at a relatively high rate and have been for a while, so they don't need tests that much, because larger and larger percentages of top students are high achievers as designated by high income. If I believed either of you gave a crap about equity, then maybe you'd have a point, but I don't think either of you do. You both believe a bunch of unfounded nonsense about IQ, and therefore are sad that maybe one or two high IQ people are displaced by equity.

Oh my.

Earlier I stopped reading before your dismissals per IQ.

1. I've never once seen you post anything about IQ other that feelings based dismissals.

2. Whether you like it or not psychology pros tell us properly administered IQ test results are either the most or second most reliable in all of psychology.

2.1. If you'd like to argue that doctors, lawyers, engineers, chemists, IT pros, actuaries, statisticians/math wonks, various researchers, many people of Letters etc. or alternatively NMSF kids are primarily born to parents outside top the IQ quintile or are themselves primarily outside the top IQ quintile............I'm all ears. You and I both know there is no reasonable argument to be made along those lines.


Forgive the typos and brutal construction I had very little time.

[blakely]

Originally Posted by Wittgenstein's Ghost

I'm sure someone will be along soon to tell us why suburban school A is better than suburban school B because it has more NMSF kids. But NMSF is a money grab by College Board that is mostly based on redundant testing. IMO, there should only be one PSAT (get rid of PSAT 8,9 and 10) and it should be given during the spring of the sophomore year rather than fall of the junior year.

The current system is silly, and any kid who is actually a competitor for NMSF is in the stupid position of possibly taking the PSAT after the SAT.

Exactly.

My kid's school administered the PSAT sophomore year and his score qualified him for NMSF, but it didn't count, because that was the "practice" year.

By September of his junior year, he had taken his first SAT, did very well (1580) and was done. So he elected not to take the PSAT administered that October. To what end?

Some might think it was foolish to give up an almost guaranteed NMSF spot, but it just wasn't important to him. He concluded that his SAT (& everything else) mattered more for the schools he had his sights on, and in the end, his admissions results suggest that he lost nothing by skipping that junior PSAT.

[gsoy]

Mine got a $2500 scholarship at the end. With non-existent merit scholarships at top schools, I was grateful for that.

Originally Posted by blakely

Exactly.

My kid's school administered the PSAT sophomore year and his score qualified him for NMSF, but it didn't count, because that was the "practice" year.

By September of his junior year, he had taken his first SAT, did very well (1580) and was done. So he elected not to take the PSAT administered that October. To what end?

Some might think it was foolish to give up an almost guaranteed NMSF spot, but it just wasn't important to him. He concluded that his SAT (& everything else) mattered more for the schools he had his sights on, and in the end, his admissions results suggest that he lost nothing by skipping that junior PSAT.

[Taub201]

Originally Posted by blakely

By September of his junior year, he had taken his first SAT, did very well (1580) and was done. So he elected not to take the PSAT administered that October. To what end?

Some might think it was foolish to give up an almost guaranteed NMSF spot, but it just wasn't important to him. He concluded that his SAT (& everything else) mattered more for the schools he had his sights on, and in the end, his admissions results suggest that he lost nothing by skipping that junior PSAT.

If you're shooting for top publics or privates, it doesn't matter. A&M gives a huge Presidential Endowed Scholarship for NMFs and Alabama gives a full ride plus. Astonishingly, UT CAPs some NMFs or admits them to the College of Liberal Arts and top privates don't care. However, it's probably quite rare for a top test taker to not take the PSAT in their junior year.

[Wittgenstein's Ghost]

I should add that another oddity with the NMSF system is that the PSAT is supposedly a slightly easier version of the SAT, but any junior who is competitive for NMSF is likely struggling with rust on old topics more than anything else. The SAT/PSAT feature mostly pre-algebra, algebra 1 and a little bit of algebra 2/geometry in the math section. There's no pre-calculus or calculus, and there's no advanced trig. Juniors who are in the top ~.8% are years beyond the core of this content, so even the idea that we should judge them on a test that is even more rudimentary than the SAT is just out of touch with reality.

Of course, I think we have good reason to not believe the PSAT is easier than the SAT. And a lot of parents are confused about this. The PSAT is shorter, so it is scored out of 1520 rather than 1600, but the stated lists of topics from College Board are identical, and the percentile breakdown by score for the top 1% falls off at the same rate. For example, per College Board, the 99th percentile on the SAT is 1450+ (150 points from the top), and the 99th percentile for the PSAT 11 is 1370+ (150 points from the top). In practice, these cutoffs have moved up to 1520+ for the SAT and 1440+ for the PSAT, but my point is that the design of score cutoffs doesn't give us any indication that the PSAT was designed to be harder than the SAT considering we are looking at equivalent users scoring about the same relative to the ceiling on the two exams.

Also, it's noteworthy that College Board is a bit coy about there being any differences in content between the PSAT 10, PSAT 11 (the real PSAT) and the SAT: https://blog.collegeboard.org/differ...vanced%20level.

I think we have reason to believe the PSAT 10 might not be any easier, either. There is a significant drop in scores for any given percentile between PSAT 10 and PSAT 11 (usually 1360 or so on PSAT 10 vs. 1440 on PSAT 11), suggesting 10th graders find the test mucher harder than 11th graders do. It isn't clear to me that College Board is really putting much effort into creating distinct exams here.

For anyone who's curious, here is the first released PSAT from College Board: https://satsuite.collegeboard.org/me...ice-test-1.pdf

Here's the first released SAT (Test 1) from College Board: https://satsuite.collegeboard.org/me...ice-test-1.pdf

To my eye, one doesn't appear more difficult than the other, and I can get every question right on both tests.

[blakely]

Originally Posted by gsoy

Mine got a $2500 scholarship at the end. With non-existent merit scholarships at top schools, I was grateful for that.

True.

One of his siblings who was NMSF didn't get the $2,500, so I didn't feel strongly about it. What I probably should have added is that he had an important event out of town the day of the test, which he decided was more important. He has a sensible head on his shoulders and I think he made the right call. As it turned out, many of the tests taken at his school that day were lost, which ended up being quite a fiasco!

[BLDSoon]

IMHO, NMSF numbers mainly predict the percentage of the Asian student population in a given school/district. It’s definitely not a predictor of the calibre of the school, the teaching staff or the district as a whole. So the comments about “Carroll is better than Frisco” are honestly funny.

I also find the comments about IQ laughable because these assume that intelligence grows in an vaccum, impenetrable to outside forces like poverty/affluence, motivation, exposure/education quality, culture, and opportunity or lack thereof. If only it were that simple. Many studies have been done about this and yet this thinking persists.

Back when Universities were about higher learning vs rankings they managed to churn out many a great scholar, inventor, businessman, and Laureate without standardized test scores. How’d they manage that?

Standardized Tests scores are about helping schools decide who to keep OUT not who to let in. If the number of applicants to spots at a certain school are at par, then one can argue the opposite. But no respectable College wants that situation because rejections take you higher up in the rankings. Which increases applications. And that ‘desirability’ adds up to some serious money.

As many students as there are that get admitted into highly ‘desirable’ schools without ever making NMSF or being the 1% of anything, I question the necessity of this exercise. I’m sure there are more efficient ways to award scholarships to smart kids if that is the end goal.

There are many entertaining arguments to be made about NMSF and standardized tests in general. I appreciate my yearly dose of this thread.

[20Hope20]

If PSAT is easier than SAT/ACT then how come only a small number of test taker make cut off for NMSF but more score high onSAT/ACT?

Statistics are a proof that being NMSF<NMF< Scholar because eligibility levels are different for each level.

[EDS_]

Originally Posted by BLDSoon

I also find the comments about IQ laughable because these assume that intelligence grows in an vaccum, impenetrable to outside forces like poverty/affluence, motivation, exposure/education quality, culture, and opportunity or lack thereof. If only it were that simple. Many studies have been done about this and yet this thinking persists.

I'm probably the biggest IQ proponent here.........as descriptor of abstract intellectual ability and predictor of top college, grad and professional school success there is nothing close.

Literally no one who pays attention to IQ believes, "intelligence grows in a vacuum." The pros tell us that IQ is between .55 and .65 heritable and the rest environmental.

[Wittgenstein's Ghost]

Originally Posted by 20Hope20

If PSAT is easier than SAT/ACT then how come only a small number of test taker make cut off for NMSF but more score high onSAT/ACT?

I am not sure what you are pointing out here. If the observation you were making were true, it would imply the PSAT was harder than the SAT/ACT. If more students were scoring high on the SAT/ACT, then the PSAT would be the harder exam.

But I'm not sure why you think more students are scoring high on the SAT/ACT. The PSAT is scored out of 1520 instead of 1600, so maybe that is throwing you off?

Originally Posted by 20Hope20

Statistics are a proof that being NMSF<NMF< Scholar because eligibility levels are different for each level.

Yes, but I don't think anyone thought otherwise.