Percentile facts for kids

A percentile is a way to understand where a specific value stands within a group of numbers. It tells you what percentage of the numbers in that group are lower than that value.

For example, if you score in the 90th percentile on a test, it means you scored better than 90% of the other students who took the same test. The 20th percentile is the value where 20% of the data is below it. The 35th percentile means 35% of the data is below that value.

In statistics, when you have a lot of numbers, like test scores or heights, you can arrange them from smallest to largest. Then, you can imagine dividing this list into 100 equal parts. Each dividing point is called a percentile.

Some percentiles have special names. For instance, the 25th, 50th, and 75th percentiles are also known as the first, second, and third quartile, respectively. The 50th percentile is also called the median, which is the middle value in a sorted list of numbers.

How Percentiles Work

To find a percentile, you first need to arrange all your numbers in order, from the smallest to the largest. Imagine you have 100 students' test scores. If you want to find the 70th percentile, you would look for the score where 70% of the students scored less than that score.

Percentiles are often used to compare individual scores to a larger group. They help you see how well someone or something performs compared to others.

Common Uses of Percentiles

Percentiles are used in many different areas:

• Education: Test scores, like those from standardized tests, are often reported using percentiles. This helps parents and teachers understand how a student's performance compares to other students across the country.
• Health: Doctors use growth charts that show percentiles for height and weight to track a child's development. If a child is in the 75th percentile for height, it means they are taller than 75% of children their age.
• Economics: Percentiles can be used to describe income distribution, showing what percentage of people earn below a certain income level.

Related pages

• Decile

Images for kids

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  Interpolated and nearest-rank, exclusive and inclusive, percentiles for 10-score distribution.

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  The percentile values for the ordered list {15, 20, 35, 40, 50}

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  The result of using each of the three variants on the ordered list {15, 20, 35, 40, 50}

See also

In Spanish: Percentil para niños