|
Post by luckylady2 on Mar 19, 2014 19:00:58 GMT -5
What I found interesting is the way the LBMT ISN'T mentioned in the tallying.
|
|
|
Post by wingnut on Mar 19, 2014 19:01:59 GMT -5
The email (I got mine also) suggests that the scores are relative to other people on the register. Isn't the register comprised of only people who got a score (didn't get knocked out on a wd or si?) So if I am reading this correctly, there would have to be a 1 and a 100 on the register and scores in between. That doesn't seem to make sense when looking at the poll.
|
|
|
Post by anotherfed on Mar 19, 2014 19:08:25 GMT -5
My interpretation of the email is that the numbers we received were not a score, per se, but rather a rank on the register. So, if you are right at one it means that everybody else who made it onto the register was ahead of you but you still made the cut. A score of 100 on the other hand would mean that you were ahead of everyone else on the register. As has been suggested by others, clearly our polls skew higher than the general population of the register.
|
|
|
Post by dudeabides on Mar 19, 2014 19:34:32 GMT -5
We need to distinguish between
1. Total Competency Score 2. Numerical Rating 3. Final Numerical Rating.
The Number that you received on your NOR is the Final Numerical Rating. NOT your "Score."
If you read it that way, it (possibly) makes some sense.
|
|
|
Post by anotherfed on Mar 19, 2014 19:43:32 GMT -5
I'm not a mathemagician, but if that were true, in our poll would not every number have (very roughly) an equal amount of people in it? Not necessarily. I think that's why our ranks go into two decimal places. To take the example of our poll, a lot of people recorded 73 as an NOR. But they rounded to the nearest whole number. Their actual scores are 73.17, 73.33, 73.45, etc. Assume a cert is pulled and SSA reaches down into the 74th percentile, but still needs a handful of 73ers to round out their numbers. They would take 1/2 of the 73ers, say to 73.45. At least I think that's what this means. Fractions and decimals ... My head hurts ... This is why I became a lawyer...
|
|
|
Post by Loopstok on Mar 19, 2014 20:08:56 GMT -5
So we still don't know our actual test scores -- specifically, our "score" on individual components such as the WD, or the SI, or the SJT. They... I'm grasping here, but it sounds like, they pulled our Final Numerical Rating not from the component scores. Rather, they gathered "metadata" from our scores on the individual components. And then threw OUT the scores from the individual components. Then they re-assembled the metadata and slotted THAT data into the 13 competencies posted above (which, the mere disclosure of which on the message board, has led a plurality of people to contend is a violation of our NDAs signed in DC last year). THEN our "final numerical rating" came from the competencies, which came from the metadata, which came from the individual component scores, which grew in the bed, which were part of the garden, close to the house that Jack built.
This seems like a very complex way of giving out scores, which by the way resemble Spring Training uniform numbers assigned to non-roster invitees.
So I have a score... and, being in the lower regions of the Message Board poll, I thought for a couple of seconds about possibly appealing that score... but it seems like, if I appeal, I'm not asking them to re-grade just my score on the WD, or on the SJT, or what have you. I'm asking them to regrade my competencies... and I don't know which of my competencies they rated highly, and which ones they didn't. And each of the 13 competency scores may have come from multiple different components, not "just" from the WD or SI or EA.
Bottom line is, I'm not going to appeal my score. I'm on the register, they'll get to me if and when they get to me... unless I'm totally misreading the way they got that Final Numerical Rating!
|
|
|
Post by minny on Mar 19, 2014 20:11:06 GMT -5
I received the same message about half an hour ago. This is interesting, but doggone hard to wrap my puny little brain around. I submitted a FOIA request yesterday to get my scores on each part/phase of the testing (just for grins and curiosity) and I initially thought this was OPM's way of saying "can't, we made it all up."
|
|
|
Post by funkyodar on Mar 19, 2014 20:19:39 GMT -5
Ok, so another, do I understand your theory correctly? That your score is not the total of your points but instead a representation of what percentage of other people on the register had lower point totals?
As in someone with a 75.00 is ahead of 75% of the other candidates and behind 25%?
I like that idea. But our polling sure has a lot of people camped out at 73 to 74. Seems to perfect of a bell for it to represent actual individual rank. And wouldn't there have to be some low scores? like really low?
Don't get me wrong, I'm sure everyone would love that scenario. A cert of 300 from an approximate 900 reg would mean everyone down to a 66 made the cert. Even lower when gals come into play. of courseit would also have to mean a whole funk load more than 900 on the reg to account for all the people that have to have scores below those reported.
But then, like you I became a lawyer cause the most math I am comfortable with is figuring 33 1/3 of a total.
|
|
|
Post by anotherfed on Mar 19, 2014 20:36:45 GMT -5
That's the way I see it, FO. I think our final rating is expressed in terms of percentiles. For example, when you got your SAT scores, you got two numbers: 1500 as a score, and an explanation that you were in the 98th percentile.
in your example of a cert of 300, you are assuming that each percentile has only 1 candidate. But theoretically, there could be 100 people in each percentile (since OPM went out two decimal places).
|
|
|
Post by JudgeRatty on Mar 19, 2014 20:41:09 GMT -5
That's the way I see it, FO. I think our final rating is expressed in terms of percentiles. For example, when you got your SAT scores, you got two numbers: 1500 as a score, and an explanation that you were in the 98th percentile. The more I read the last email the more I am leaning this way. They used the term comparative and how the rating is a value that is compared to others. They specifically point out that an individual with a 1 did not fail but that is how they rank when compared to others on the register. This is quite a different interpretation! Using terms like "relative to others" sure sounds like a ranking rather than a raw score. Upon more reflection, the term "rank" or "percent" is nowhere in the email. Rating it is.
|
|
|
Post by sealaw90 on Mar 19, 2014 20:45:56 GMT -5
ok, so many months ago I found this thread and it explained the scoring as it was surmised at the time. Read it for what it's worth, but I found it helpful and it may help explain our current situation with these emails; aljdiscussion.proboards.com/thread/1466/understanding-alj-final-numerical-rating
BTW - shout out to maxlaw who posted great stuff back then and is gracious to help us newbies today!
|
|
sxsw
Full Member
Posts: 75
|
Post by sxsw on Mar 19, 2014 20:47:57 GMT -5
This may also explain why the scores go out to the second decimal: 73.34 for example.
|
|
|
Post by JudgeRatty on Mar 19, 2014 20:54:14 GMT -5
ok, so many months ago I found this thread and it explained the scoring as it was surmised at the time. Read it for what it's worth, but I found it helpful and it may help explain our current situation with these emails; aljdiscussion.proboards.com/thread/1466/understanding-alj-final-numerical-rating
BTW - shout out to maxlaw who posted great stuff back then and is gracious to help us newbies today! The difference (other than the components of testing as we all know) is the new language about comparative and "relative to others" on the register. "ratings signify only how they placed relative to others." This is new.
|
|
|
Post by ba on Mar 19, 2014 21:04:41 GMT -5
Only OPM would send a mass email "clarifying" how they reached a score that only confuses the process more.
|
|
|
Post by brpesq on Mar 19, 2014 21:09:40 GMT -5
I will be anxious to see if OPM responds to FOIA requests as I think that is the first route to take to determine whether an appeal is feasible. Perhaps I missed it, but does anyone know the deadline for filing an appeal?
|
|
|
Post by BagLady on Mar 19, 2014 21:11:08 GMT -5
30 days from the date of the appeal e-mail.
|
|
|
Post by funkyodar on Mar 19, 2014 21:36:10 GMT -5
I can see how the opmese can be translated to this theory. Maybe its the situational bourbon, but I can't wrap my head around the math.
89 people reported scores in our poll at 75 or above.
If we assume board participants represent 25% of total applicants (as has been suggested in the past) that equates to 356 people. And under this theory, those 356 represent the top quarter of the register.
That would mean a register size of 1424. I don't think that many even tested in dc based on our past swags. And, again if our polling is even close to accurate, 20 to 25% of those that tested in dc were cut (our SD brethren).
Am I missing something in the bourbon fog?
Not to mention, no one has reported a score in the lower half of the register and there has to be many in that boat for this theory to work. No?
|
|
|
Post by robespierre on Mar 19, 2014 21:40:47 GMT -5
I'm not a mathemagician, but if that were true, in our poll would not every number have (very roughly) an equal amount of people in it? Not necessarily. I think that's why our ranks go into two decimal places. To take the example of our poll, a lot of people recorded 73 as an NOR. But they rounded to the nearest whole number. Their actual scores are 73.17, 73.33, 73.45, etc. Assume a cert is pulled and SSA reaches down into the 74th percentile, but still needs a handful of 73ers to round out their numbers. They would take 1/2 of the 73ers, say to 73.45. At least I think that's what this means. Fractions and decimals ... My head hurts ... This is why I became a lawyer... Anotherfed - I love ya, sistah, but I have to disagree with you on this one. If our scores represented a percentile ranking (1 to the very lowest scorer, and so on, up to 100 to the very highest scorer), then the scores would proceed in linear fashion up the ladder, with an equal number of people landing on each score (except that anyone under 50 or so would be absent since they likely didn't meet the minimum on the WD or SI). There would be no reason why so many folks would end up at 73. That's why DD's question is spot on. And you didn't really answer him. You pointed out that there are many gradations within 73 (including my own!!). But, there would also be gradations within 51 and 65 and 80 and on and on. Yet only 73 and its immediate neighbors have such a big population. I recognize that I am taking shots at your theory without proposing one of my own. Guilty as charged. I just don't understand today's e-mail in light of the polling on this site, which clearly shows a near-perfect bell curve distribution rather than straight percentiles. Maybe they took the scores and somehow plotted them onto a bell curve, and that's what they mean by "relative to others"? Maybe the poll (which is unscientific, after all) is totally skewed? Dunno.
|
|
|
Post by 71stretch on Mar 19, 2014 21:41:19 GMT -5
I will be anxious to see if OPM responds to FOIA requests as I think that is the first route to take to determine whether an appeal is feasible. Perhaps I missed it, but does anyone know the deadline for filing an appeal? I would not count on getting an answer to a FOIA request before the appeal deadline. You need to be prepared to go ahead without whatever that request might give you... and there's no guarantee it will give you anything helpful.
|
|
|
Post by anotherfed on Mar 19, 2014 22:03:34 GMT -5
Our poll is skewed. I would expect that the habitual Board posters and lurkers are more interested, informed, and invested in this process than people who don't know about the Board. Because of this, I would expect our scores to be higher as a group than someone who is new to the process and doesn't have the benefit of this Board. If, as today's email claimed, there is a final numerical rating of 1, then why does our poll not reflect that? As sratty pointed out, today's email talked about the final numerical rating as a comparative number. It is not a score, it is a rank.
|
|