Competition Score Analytics
& Grading Intelligence
F1-Macro scores · 2,339 participants · Outlier-adjusted grading formula · IITM BS Data Science 2026
Most students score <30%
Extremely compressed scale
Balanced distribution
Reflects true performance
| # | Kaggle Username | F1-Macro Score | Grade (Original 0.87) | Grade (Adjusted P95) | Δ Impact |
|---|
The base formula normalizes participant scores relative to a top-scorer benchmark, rewarding performance above the minimum cutoff. The challenge: when the top score is a statistical outlier, the formula systematically under-rewards all other participants.
- Top score is 5.18σ above mean — extreme outlier
- Only 3 of 1,399 scored above 0.86 (0.2%)
- 99.8% of cohort is bunched below 50% grade
- Mean grade = 22.6% — most students at ~D level
- Does not reflect actual competition difficulty
- Single exceptional result penalizes everyone else
- P95 is statistically robust — not swayed by outliers
- Top 5% of students still get full credit (grade=1.0)
- Mean grade rises from 22.6% → 45.8%
- Score spread better reflects cohort's actual range
- Consistent with academic norm-referencing practices
- Denominator shrinks: 0.8345−0.800 = 0.0345 vs 0.07
When 2,339 students submitted their machine learning models to the Kaggle competition, the results painted a vivid picture of performance, determination, and an unexpected twist at the top. The 0.800 cutoff emerged as a natural watershed: it divided the cohort nearly 60/40 — 1,399 crossed the line, 906 didn't. The successful students clustered tightly between 0.800 and 0.840, reflecting a cohort that largely converged on similar modeling approaches. Then, high above the rest, one student (saanvitiwari) achieved 0.8711 — 5.18 standard deviations beyond the mean. This exceptional score, while impressive, created a statistical paradox: it made everyone else look average. The grading formula, sensitive to this single ceiling value, compressed 99% of legitimate effort into a narrow grade band. The fix is elegant: cap the denominator at P95. The top 5% still earn full marks. Everyone else gets grades that reflect their genuine standing — not their distance from a single outlier.