Immersion lottery numbers and odds

[Anonymous]

In spite of myself I am getting a little worked up waiting for the results of the immersion lottery. Why is MCPS so secretive about the number of applicants by program, grade, etc?

Bayard Rustin's online presentation had some numbers, but they were the only ones I could find.

2023-2024 - 206 applied for K, 60 applied for 1st grade at BRES
2022-2023 - 189 for K, 86 for 1st
2021-2022 - 222 for K, 86 for 1st

Overall, across the 7 programs

2023-2024 - 1097 total applicants (652 for K)
2022-2023 - 1163 total applicants (565 for K)
2021-2022 - 1179 total applicants (669 for K)

Since there are 264 total seats and the waitlist often moves quite a bit for each school, I was surprised to realize that such a high percentage of kindergarten applicants are ultimately offered a spot somewhere, though maybe not in the desired program. Different story for the upper grades, of course.

Does anyone have any other info or impressions about how high the wait list goes for upper grades, other schools, etc?

[Anonymous]

You should do a search on dcum—this has been discussed many times.

[Anonymous]

SCES family here. We were told if you have a number under 30 for K, you're very likely to get a spot. That checked out for us, we had an under 10 number and kid was offered a spot about 3 weeks later. Kid is now in 2nd grade and one kid came in by lottery in 1st grade and one another in second grade. We know two other families who have entered in first.

[Anonymous]

You can get into immersion in first grade without knowing the target language. Starting in second grade you have to test in if there’s an open spot. As in a student had to drop out of the program completely.

[Anonymous]

We were offered an immersion spot in November. I think we were on the 60s.