Query to exclude outliers

[BRZ-Ryan]

I'm creating a query that is getting the max and min values from a table.

I have an issue where there are occasionally some outliers at the top or bottom values that are throwing off what we expect as a result. I want to create a query that uses comboboxes with a values from 1-20 that when selected, with exclude the top and bottom N rows.

Example data:
22


535
567
664
701
3200
3434

So in this case, I do not want 22, 3200, 3434 so I'd like to select 1 from the bottom combo to exclude that 1 bottom record, and select 2 from top combo to exlude 3200 and 3434.

I am currently using 3 queries to achieve this but results are not correct. Is this the correct approach or is there a better way.

SELECT Max(Seconds) AS MX, Min(Seconds) AS MN
FROM (SELECT TOP 90 Seconds FROM 
(SELECT TOP 95 Seconds 
FROM 
(
SELECT Seconds 
FROM tblTestRanges) AS AllSec 
ORDER BY Seconds) AS ASCSec 
ORDER BY Seconds DESC) AS DESCSec;

[orange]

I don't know your background or the level of detail you need. You might want to look at standard deviation and the related access functions It may give you a better and more consistent means of identifying or ignoring outliers.

[BRZ-Ryan]

Whatever you think is best, do you have any recommendations on how to pull this off with the data provided?

I'm a novice at SQL, experienced in VB. I've never used the StDev() function.

[orange]

What is the data you are dealing with -- in plain English? I don't have any specific info --outliers are often subjective.
What is not correct with

I am currently using 3 queries to achieve this but results are not correct.

[BRZ-Ryan]

When I select to exclude the top highest, my numbers are drastically reduced.

I just did a Count query on the above results and I did one on the full data set (inner most in the nest)

Dataset = 496 records
Query using 99/99 as top/bottom = 99 records.. This should be 494.

Edit: I think I figured this out!

Here's what I used. The inner query I am subtracting the 1 record I do not want. On the outer query I take the resulting value of that (99) and subtract 1 since I am only left with 99, this is why the outside takes the top 98.

SELECT Min(Seconds) As MinSec, Max(Seconds) As MaxSec
FROM (
SELECT TOP 98 tblTime.Seconds
FROM (
SELECT TOP 99 tblTime.Seconds
FROM (
SELECT tblTime.Seconds
FROM tblTime, tblEmp
WHERE tblTime.EmpID=tblEmp.ID AND tblEmp.EmpType=1
ORDER BY tblTime.Seconds) AS [RangeAll]
ORDER BY tblTime.Seconds ASC) AS [RangeDESC]
ORDER BY tblTime.Seconds DESC) As [RangeASC];