I've got a couple of players who showed avg potential in a category when I saw them in FSS. But now I just got the Player Thoughts email from my asst coach and they're showing as "big upside" in those categories. Am I missing something here? Do FSS and Player Thoughts operate on different scales as far as high / mid / low potential?

Slightly.  You should get 19-20 points of improvement in the categories.

Hmmm, I didn't know that. Thanks dahsdebater.

The AC email comes after a month (according to site staff) of watching the players practice. Certain skill improvement projections may change based on the observations conducted over the longer period of time. The high/avg/low scale is the same for both but the AC email is what the growth over the season will be based on.

Thanks Weena. So does that mean that my new high-potential categories could grow just as much as other high potentials (20+ points overall)?

Yes, they will grow 20+ points.

my guess is there is a rounding error. a lot of categories drop that were borderline, which i have seen a satisfactory response from CS on (they were borderline and the practice tipped them over). but i haven't seen a satisfactory answer from CS, like the one weena suggested (hey weena - where is that from?), on why a category could go up when practicing it 7+ minutes, which has been reported a number of times. so, i just always figured one was rounding a 19.5 to medium and the other to high.

i would think you could only expect 20 points of improvement till capped - like, i don't think you can get a medium, then a high, and see 25 points of improvement (for example). i've only seen this strange issue a couple times with my own players and they all then gained the minimum for the higher range. but, as it was only a couple cases, i could have easily had a couple border cases, and it could be anything in the high range.