I've never looked at the awards levels, now that you mention it... DS missed NUMATS awards level this year, but I think part of that was our having skipped him up a couple grades (and how close the awards levels are to the hard ceiling of the test... He's doing the ACT this summer and we'll see if anything goes up!) Now I'm curious....
That was dd's experience this year as well. She made the awards last year through RMATS (Colorado), but having been a 9 y/o 6th grader taking the SAT this year did place her scores below the top 25%. My understanding re the awards levels, at least with our local talent search, is that they give awards to the top 10% and the top 25% in their region. So, if you have a broader group of kids taking the test in your region (like those who can fog a mirror and pay - lol, not just the top achievers in a specific grade), I'd imagine that the chances of placing highly in comparison to that group would be increased.
