Statistics - A score of 684 is better than 36% of U.S. consumers

[Anonymous]

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@RobertEG wrote:

I believe that Fair Isaac uses the mean score rather than the average score when making such comparisons.

Mean score comparisons takes the score in the exact middle of the number of consumers, regardless of the scores of those above and below.  It is a statistical game.

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I think you are confusing "mean" and "median."  The mean is the average, the median is the number in the middle.  Also, I don't understand the difference in qualitative value between mean and median.  Both can be very misleading.  The mean mainly because of outliers (very low and very high scores that skew the mean value) and the median because of inconsistencies in distribution.  For instance, if you take a sample of 101 credit scores, the median would be whatever sample #51 was.  So, say samples 1-50 were anywhere from 300-450, sample 51 was 475, and samples 52-101 were greater than 700.  Is the median an accurate representation of score distribution?  Not at all.

[cashnocredit]

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@zbret wrote:

Back in 2005 or so, I could believe the statement "A score of 684 is better than 36% of U.S. consumers" but somehow I get the feeling that the data for this comparison has not been updated.  (For those unfamiliar, it shows up when you look at your "Score Watch" graph).

I realize 684 is not stellar, but I find it hard to believe its in the bottom third, particularly given the number of bankruptsies, lates, etc there are today, plus credit contraction such as lenders reducing credit limits (which reduces available credit and pushes your scores down pretty hard - its what happened to me).

Can someone from myFICO comment on the dates for this statistics generator, and if I'm right and its old, consider updating it?

To anyone reading this, do you think this statistics data seems wrong to you (at least for 2011 data)?

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Hey, don't be pessimistic. You're in the middle third, not the bottom third.

[Anonymous]

Its an odd game my mom is in bankruptcy and her score is higher than mine.