National Merit Semifinalist 2023 (Austin, Plano, Coppell: 2013, neighborhoods, high schools)

[Jayerdu]

Anyone have the official Texas list?

[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. Since neither the SAT nor the PSAT have anything on them past Algebra 2/simple trig, kids who are in the top ~.8% have already taken all relevant coursework by the end of the sophomore year (or before). Thus, it makes sense for those kids to target the August SAT during the fall of their junior year so they can prep over the summer and somewhat limit rust on things they learned a couple years before. But the PSAT isn't until October of the junior year. It's a dumb system, and it all boils down to College Board's financial interests.

[Taub201]

Isn't it meant to be equitable to all types of schools? Advanced students would have taken Algebra 2/simple trig by fall of their junior year, and isn't the verbal part still doubled and added to the math to get one's selection index? It's definitely a test that favors the well prepped and higher income student.

16 NMSF at Highland Park HS (3% of class)
24 at St Marks (24% of '22 class size) https://www.smtexas.org/academics/college-counseling

[Wittgenstein's Ghost]

Originally Posted by Taub201

Isn't it meant to be equitable to all types of schools? Advanced students would have taken Algebra 2/simple trig by fall of their junior year, and isn't the verbal part still doubled and added to the math to get one's selection index? It's definitely a test that favors the well prepped and higher income student.

16 NMSF at Highland Park HS (3% of class)
24 at St Marks (24% of '22 class size) https://www.smtexas.org/academics/college-counseling

Being equitable to all types of schools isn't the same thing as being equitable to all types of students. And PSAT scores only matter for less than 1 in 100 students. I'd bet money that 99% of kids who are scoring in the top .8% have taken Algebra 2 by the end of their sophomore year. And they're probably past the point in English classes that they are covering basic grammar skills, which is what the writing test is. The PSAT and SAT don't really test much deep literary analysis, either, which is what most advanced juniors and seniors are covering.

In most cases, advanced kids should be targeting an early fall test date in their junior year for the SAT. That the PSAT -- which is really only a relevant test for advanced kids trying for NMSF -- doesn't happen until October is really a bad setup.

[Taub201]

It's a fun debate. I agree that a super high percentage of top scorers on the PSAT took Algebra II by sophomore year. Probably even at under represented high schools that UT-Austin is focused on. As you know, MIT reinstituted the SAT/ACT requirement because it finds that the tests "predictive validity...coupled with their ability to identify (some) students who would not otherwise be ‘picked up’ by other indicators, means that we are able to use them to help diversify our class more than if we did not consider them."

https://mitadmissions.org/blogs/entr...ssions-cycles/

I wonder if Plano ISD will top the 79 NMSF that it had in the 2022 class. I suspect their figures have been dropping due to migration to the north. Plano ISD had 128 NMSF in the 2013 class.

[Wittgenstein's Ghost]

Originally Posted by Taub201

It's a fun debate. I agree that a super high percentage of top scorers on the PSAT took Algebra II by sophomore year. Probably even at under represented high schools that UT-Austin is focused on. As you know, MIT reinstituted the SAT/ACT requirement because it finds that the tests "predictive validity...coupled with their ability to identify (some) students who would not otherwise be ‘picked up’ by other indicators, means that we are able to use them to help diversify our class more than if we did not consider them."

Yes, MIT went back to their old policy, and some schools have hinted they might do the same. We've also seen things like a bill in the Tennessee legislature that has since been abandoned that would have required state schools to require a test score.

What I can say with a pretty high level of certainty, however, is that at most large, competitive universities, kids from good high schools in expensive neighborhoods are generally expected to submit test scores. That might not be true if you're black, but if you're white or Asian (including Indian), it is true. Many colleges are using the test optional thing to diversify their student body without hurting their hard admissions numbers. Colleges want to have high GPAs and test scores for their entering class, but they also want to have a racially diverse class. These are, for better or worse, conflicting goals. Test optional can solve that by allowing them to let students from more diverse backgrounds in through the test optional track while simeultaneously requiring the white/Asian/Indian kids from Plano to submit test scores.

It's not a perfect system, but I wouldn't be surprised if it's the system that persists for a while. I highly doubt we will see a movement toward test blind admissions at big, competitive universities (outside of California, which basically funded a study that told them testing was useful in admissions and then ignored the results of the study due to non-education considerations).

[Taub201]

Back in 2008 in Frisco's infancy, Frisco HS had one NMSF and Centennial had two. It'll be interesting to compare the 2023 results to 15 years prior. Lots of change!
https://www.city-data.com/forum/dall...finalists.html

Florida publics require test scores. Even did during the pandemic.
Conversely, California publics are test blind indefinitely.

I wonder if fewer Californians take tests or that schools like SMU and TCU give Californians more of a pass on that. There may be more full pay from CA headed OOS.

[EDS_]

Just a data point in the weeds a little. The University of California System in particular does not use test scores for admission and scholarship purposes but submitted test scores may be used for class placement and other things. One bit of ambiguity......one source claims that high test scores may be used to offset low grades and another indicates that's not the case.

What UC has done, as Wittgenstein's Ghost noted, is ignore its own earlier conclusions and outside consulting input indicating that test scores are very useful and for "equity" reasons alone ditched test scores as admission criteria.

Here's a well reasoned argument, from a left leaning source BTW, claiming getting rid of test scores will hurt CA Black, American Indian and Hispanic UC hopefuls.


https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/ar...ng-sat/619522/


________


I predict significant failure and that UC will generate its own admissions test before 2030. Along those lines admitted students at Berkeley for sure and I think Davis, Santa Cruz and UCSD must take a math placement exam and several UC schools have writing placement exams as well. It won't be too long before similar are required for admission.......there are going to be a lot of misses.

[arkroyal2223]

Greenhill 6
Highland Park 16
Hockaday 26
Jesuit 6
Parish 1
TAG 10
St Marks 24
Ursuline 5
Cisterician 5
Plano West 63
Plano East 33
Plano 8
Coppell 31
Southlake 41
Flower Mount 29

[Wittgenstein's Ghost]

Originally Posted by EDS_

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/ar...ng-sat/619522/

This article does a good job of laying out the obvious point, and I'll modify it here for DFW folks: If you took a hypothetical six year old and started him at the local kindergarten in the north DFW suburbs, would you expect him to not score any better ten years later on the SAT than he would have had he grown up in South Oak Cliff? Of course not.

We don't even need to get into the weeds on the most polarizing social questions to know that the "score differences are sufficient to prove bias" crowd has lost their minds.

Another point that should be discussed more: If in fact the SAT was a biased exam that catered to the upbringing and culture of wealthy whites and Asians, we should expect to see a bigger race gap on the reading and writing sections than on the math sections. But we don't. In fact, per College Board's 2021 report, the white-black score gap was eight points larger on math than on ERW (Evidence-Based Reading and Writing). So the whole idea that the passages might not be as familiar to one crowd as the other is a complete red herring. The gap gets even bigger on math.

Page 3: https://reports.collegeboard.org/med...%20%281%29.pdf


Edit to add: I agree that the UC system will probably create its own test, but I can't decide between an arrogance joke and an ignorance joke here. College Board has given roughly 1.6 million SATs annually for decades, and that's not counting PSAT and AP exams. They know a hell of a lot more than the UC system does about standardized testing, and they have mountains more data. They also have known that allegations of bias were an existential threat to them for a very long time. Despite all of that, they can't create a test that gets rid of these score disparities, and the UC system will have to wake up to this reality sooner or later.