Are Scholastic Ratings Way Out of Line?

I was at an open this weekend that was attended by a large number of scholastic players, and I noticed that the scholastic players rated in the 1000 - 1100 range were finishing well ahead of the adults in the 1600 range by and large. They were putting up favorable results against 1800s pretty regularly. 

And this got me wondering, is the scholastic rating pool in general artificially low compared to adult ratings? 

It might be for the stronger children, as their opponents are making progress faster than the rating would indicate. Everything evens out as soon as they play against adults anyway.

Your question omits a few minor details - like how many ratings were provisional and how active the various players have been recently. Overall your anecdotal observations minus any facts makes it impossible to draw any sort of reasonable or logical conclusion

I don't know how active the specific players have been outside of scholastic events, I only have the observation that the scholastic players seemed in general to play well above their published rating. 

Pool size and sequestration matters as well. If the scholastic players had up until that point only been playing each other, it may have been mathematically impossible for their ratings to get very high. 

I know absolutley nothing about mathematics, but I thought, as happened in the well-known case of Claude Bloodgood who played almost exclusively within the confines of a prison, that such a closed pool tended to raise some folks' rating unrealitically.

That would happen if some people in the pool are durably much stronger than the others. This is unlikely in a scholastic pool, where you could expect a lot of players to raise their skill level at the same time and in a relatively short time-frame.

The point about pool size is that you need a large pool to generate ratings that are far from the entry point rating. For example, if your pool size is only four people and everyone starts at 1000, it would be impossible for anybody to ever be rated higher than 1600, even if they won every single game they ever played. More reasonably, it would be highly unlikely for anyone to be rated higher than 1400. The average rating will always be 1000, even if the entire group improves greatly in strength. 

Here-and-Now and JamieKowalski, thanks for the educational responses.

In the Austin area kids are scary strong. A lot of the kids have coaches and they increase in skill faster than the raiting since they have lots of freetime to play and might have a few months in between tournaments. 

WOW! Maybe the kids are being coached because a 700 point spread is huge.

In order to keep the (little) kids happy, USCF looks the other way while Grade School kids get rated from 100 to 1000, to protect their alleged fragile egos.

This is exceeding dumb, but probably inevitable, given the desire to keep them interested in the game.

"Beginners" should start at about a 1000 rating, no exceptions.  Indeed, many of the grade school tournaments don't even require the kids to take notation.  Whatever.

After about 6 months worth of tournament playing time, many kids are (way) much stronger than their 200-700 ratings.

And the net result is exactly as the OP decribed above, they play havoc with the B and C Class adult ratings.  Dragging these down about 200 points over the past decade or two.

Indeed, about 20 years ago, an 1850 USCF rating was roughly the 85th percentile of active tournament players.  Nowadays a 1650 rating is about the 85th percentile.

This has occured (largely) because there are 35 thousand kids, and 20 thousand adults in the USCF rating pool.  And the spread of kids between 100 and 1000 ratings inevitably drags the center of the distribution down.

But at least the Glicko System has enforced standardization in the main rating pool, once the kids jump into the non-scholastic tournaments.

Letting kids (or any new players) have ratings below 1000 is, IMHO, still a dumb idea. Many kids jump from 100 to 1000 in only six to nine months.  What's the point?  Let everyone start between 1000 and 1200, and if you suck, your rating will naturally fall.

Chess.com starts everyone at 1200.  That seems about right to me. 

zborgs comment was knowledgeable. thanks.

I just played in an OTB tourny where I got hammered by some kids rated 300 points below me   My impression is that a 1200 junior is at least as good as a senile old coot rated 1500!

Kudos to Scholastic chess, these kids are GOOD!

This is not true.  They artifically deflate adult ratings over time as the great majority of scholastic players don't continue into adult chess, and each year a new bunch of kids come in.

+10, and some Class B and Class C adults give up the game when beaten by rapidly rising 8-10 year olds.  So everyone loses, unfortunately.

I think alot of kids (trust me, I'm a kid.) look at the game differently than alot of adults do. Kids set really high goals for themselves, and aim and expect great results. I don't know if this is relative, but it is definately true.

Anyways, I think adults either underestimate kids, or fear them because they are rapidly improving youngsters. This definately gives kids an edge.

Since kids rapidly improve, It is very normal for kids to do very well regularly. A kid who was rated 1000 as of 6 months ago, might play in a tournament 6 months later and gain about 300 rating points.

Everybody starts low and then gains. It is just on a bigger scale for kids.

And, It's not the little kid's fault that you lose to them.

When I was about 900-1100 USCF, I got upset victories and draws against adults pretty regularly. If you are afraid of losing to 8 year olds, play cautiously. Closed positions commonly favor adults.

Now, I'm about 1700-1800 USCF, and the 1100-1300 kids annoy me to.

At a certain point, you can start getting draws, and wins against B class players, and then when you are paired against an E class player, you have no Idea what to do. Happens to all of us.

But absolute beginners should start at 1000.  Starting at 100 mucks up the system.

Chess.com starts everyone at 1200.  That seems about right to me.  And both Chess.com and USCF use the Glicko algorithm.

Too many kids break out into tears when they lose, that's the real basis of letting them start at 100.  Which is nuts for the rating system.

Yes, you can improve 400 points in 6 months (or faster) if you start at 100.  So what.

No one should start below 1000.  It makes no sense.

I don't think adults have lesser goals or fear/underestimation of kids in general.  Kids brains are still set up for quick learning, and they're learning tons of new stuff every day, and chess is just thrown into the mix.  Also I think in general kids have more energy and less to spend it on.

Not sure what you mean by getting good results against, say, a 1700 player and then not knowing what to do against a 1100 rated player.  Basically push some wood and wait for them to  give you a rook :p