DCI didn't offer any non-preference seats for 6th grade Chinese or Spanish - What gives?

[Anonymous]

DCI used to offer about non-preference seats in every language. It looks like they only offered non-preference spots in French this year.

Why?

And - Why wasn't this information made public in advance of the lottery?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DCI used to offer about non-preference seats in every language. It looks like they only offered non-preference spots in French this year.

Why?

And - Why wasn't this information made public in advance of the lottery?

How or why would that have impacted anything in your life? Not a good look.

[Anonymous]

There's no point in visiting or trying to get your kid in if they aren't going to make any offers. As the parent of a rising 5th grader who's interested, I'd like to know.

[Anonymous]

Because the demand for slots from preferenced students (feeders + siblings + staff) exceeds the available seats in the more popular language tracks (chinese and spanish). They can't just shift all excess spots away from french, as they need a certain number of students in the french track to make class sizes and scheduling practical.
And they would not have known until the preferenced students accept or reject their offers whether they would have extra spots in Chinese and Spanish, so how could they have told you? In any case, you can tell by looking at the past numbers that you had a slim chance of getting in off the lottery even if they had a couple extra spots.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Because the demand for slots from preferenced students (feeders + siblings + staff) exceeds the available seats in the more popular language tracks (chinese and spanish). They can't just shift all excess spots away from french, as they need a certain number of students in the french track to make class sizes and scheduling practical.
And they would not have known until the preferenced students accept or reject their offers whether they would have extra spots in Chinese and Spanish, so how could they have told you? In any case, you can tell by looking at the past numbers that you had a slim chance of getting in off the lottery even if they had a couple extra spots.

Chances for Chinese aren't that slim. Last year they made 23 5th grade offers to an initial waitlist of 59 kids. For 8th, 44 offers were made and only 48 kids were on the initial waitlist.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Because the demand for slots from preferenced students (feeders + siblings + staff) exceeds the available seats in the more popular language tracks (chinese and spanish). They can't just shift all excess spots away from french, as they need a certain number of students in the french track to make class sizes and scheduling practical.
And they would not have known until the preferenced students accept or reject their offers whether they would have extra spots in Chinese and Spanish, so how could they have told you? In any case, you can tell by looking at the past numbers that you had a slim chance of getting in off the lottery even if they had a couple extra spots.

Chances for Chinese aren't that slim. Last year they made 23 5th grade offers to an initial waitlist of 59 kids. For 8th, 44 offers were made and only 48 kids were on the initial waitlist.

Same question as OP. Why not just have 20 open slots instead of zero slots with a default to waitlist? I thought that it might be explained by growth in feeder school cohort sizes (siblings?) but it looks like they've only needed to add a handful of preference slots each year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Because the demand for slots from preferenced students (feeders + siblings + staff) exceeds the available seats in the more popular language tracks (chinese and spanish). They can't just shift all excess spots away from french, as they need a certain number of students in the french track to make class sizes and scheduling practical.
And they would not have known until the preferenced students accept or reject their offers whether they would have extra spots in Chinese and Spanish, so how could they have told you? In any case, you can tell by looking at the past numbers that you had a slim chance of getting in off the lottery even if they had a couple extra spots.

Chances for Chinese aren't that slim. Last year they made 23 5th grade offers to an initial waitlist of 59 kids. For 8th, 44 offers were made and only 48 kids were on the initial waitlist.

Same question as OP. Why not just have 20 open slots instead of zero slots with a default to waitlist? I thought that it might be explained by growth in feeder school cohort sizes (siblings?) but it looks like they've only needed to add a handful of preference slots each year.

I think because they want to keep the no-preference kids from matching until all siblings and preference kids have been admitted. So like if a kid at YY matched for 6th, then enrolled, that would trigger a preference for their sibling who didn't attend YY, the sibling would jump to the top of the Chinese no-preference list. Right?

[Anonymous]

Does anyone know when the first non-guarantee expansion class graduates for each feeder?

[Anonymous]

I believe for Stokes it's the current 4th grade. For Mundo it's the current 3rd grade.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Does anyone know when the first non-guarantee expansion class graduates for each feeder?

That only applies to Spanish feeders. Not to the others.

[Anonymous]

Looks like more YY kids are tracking to DCI.

The trend is clear. There will be no seats available to non-feeder kids in 1-2 years in any track. In 2 years, the class coming in from Stokes is the expansion class so there will be no more French either which is the only track with non-preference this year.

As PP said above, DCI has a very high retention rate and I don’t see that changing anytime soon. In fact, I predict that rate will increase.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Because the demand for slots from preferenced students (feeders + siblings + staff) exceeds the available seats in the more popular language tracks (chinese and spanish). They can't just shift all excess spots away from french, as they need a certain number of students in the french track to make class sizes and scheduling practical.
And they would not have known until the preferenced students accept or reject their offers whether they would have extra spots in Chinese and Spanish, so how could they have told you? In any case, you can tell by looking at the past numbers that you had a slim chance of getting in off the lottery even if they had a couple extra spots.

Chances for Chinese aren't that slim. Last year they made 23 5th grade offers to an initial waitlist of 59 kids. For 8th, 44 offers were made and only 48 kids were on the initial waitlist.

Same question as OP. Why not just have 20 open slots instead of zero slots with a default to waitlist? I thought that it might be explained by growth in feeder school cohort sizes (siblings?) but it looks like they've only needed to add a handful of preference slots each year.

I think because they want to keep the no-preference kids from matching until all siblings and preference kids have been admitted. So like if a kid at YY matched for 6th, then enrolled, that would trigger a preference for their sibling who didn't attend YY, the sibling would jump to the top of the Chinese no-preference list. Right?

Oh wow. OK. Thank you for this helpful explanation. I didn't realize that preferences extended to feeder-matched students. It makes sense in retrospect but I hadn't seen it layed out that clearly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Because the demand for slots from preferenced students (feeders + siblings + staff) exceeds the available seats in the more popular language tracks (chinese and spanish). They can't just shift all excess spots away from french, as they need a certain number of students in the french track to make class sizes and scheduling practical.
And they would not have known until the preferenced students accept or reject their offers whether they would have extra spots in Chinese and Spanish, so how could they have told you? In any case, you can tell by looking at the past numbers that you had a slim chance of getting in off the lottery even if they had a couple extra spots.

Chances for Chinese aren't that slim. Last year they made 23 5th grade offers to an initial waitlist of 59 kids. For 8th, 44 offers were made and only 48 kids were on the initial waitlist.

Same question as OP. Why not just have 20 open slots instead of zero slots with a default to waitlist? I thought that it might be explained by growth in feeder school cohort sizes (siblings?) but it looks like they've only needed to add a handful of preference slots each year.

I think because they want to keep the no-preference kids from matching until all siblings and preference kids have been admitted. So like if a kid at YY matched for 6th, then enrolled, that would trigger a preference for their sibling who didn't attend YY, the sibling would jump to the top of the Chinese no-preference list. Right?

Oh wow. OK. Thank you for this helpful explanation. I didn't realize that preferences extended to feeder-matched students. It makes sense in retrospect but I hadn't seen it layed out that clearly.

I'm not 100% sure I'm right though! That's just what I think they're trying to accomplish.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Looks like more YY kids are tracking to DCI.

The trend is clear. There will be no seats available to non-feeder kids in 1-2 years in any track. In 2 years, the class coming in from Stokes is the expansion class so there will be no more French either which is the only track with non-preference this year.

As PP said above, DCI has a very high retention rate and I don’t see that changing anytime soon. In fact, I predict that rate will increase.

DCI retention rate is > 90%

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Looks like more YY kids are tracking to DCI.

The trend is clear. There will be no seats available to non-feeder kids in 1-2 years in any track. In 2 years, the class coming in from Stokes is the expansion class so there will be no more French either which is the only track with non-preference this year.

As PP said above, DCI has a very high retention rate and I don’t see that changing anytime soon. In fact, I predict that rate will increase.

DCI retention rate is > 90%

Because the choice for most feeder families is DCI or move/private. People take feeder school seats, and others backfill open upper elementary seats, to escape Brookland Middle or MacFarland. And as housing prices continue to rise, many more families will be scrambling for a seat that enables them to stay in their current EOTP house. Families in expansion grades that are banking on attrition "guaranteeing" them a DCI seat seem oblivious to this phenomenon.