Is the lottery more intense than usual this year?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Maybe there is some standard way of informing parents about their chances of getting in BEFORE the open house, and BEFORE they do their lottery selections. Could they add a column on the myschoolsdc site? They have a lot of information on there for all of the schools, but no standard piece of data for % accept rate.

They kind of do that for the DCPS schools, with # of available spaces and # of applicants last year. You can see, at least with Ross, that the number of available spaces (3) and number of applications last year (95) that your chances of getting in are very slim, no matter what.

Last year, for PS3, we went to a lot of open houses because I thought it was the responsible thing to do. Why clog up the application pool if we weren't really interested in the school? Obviously that ended up being really disappointing, because we fell in love with schools that we ended up with triple digit waitlist numbers for.

This year, I feel like we have a much better understanding of the various schools, including how we'd rank them, so we aren't going to any open houses. The places we were interested in last year are still on our list, in the order they were in (since we actually ranked everything by preference in private, like a common application). If she doesn't get in anywhere, we're also fine with where we are.

True, you can find this information, if you know how to do it. It is not user-friendly, and I only knew about it because I followed the lottery last year (when my daughter was just 1!) to understand it better. And, it is only for DCPS and doesn't tell you how far down the waitlist they eventually went. Ross is different, because it's very sought-after; I have been surprised when talking to other EOTP schools to find out how far down the waitlist they actually went. These are not Ross-type schools, but still fairly desirable schools for PK3. Some charters never even put their initial waitlist/acceptance list online. It would be great if this was all on the myschooldc site next year.

[Anonymous]

I think people could save much agony if they drafted up a list of criteria beforehand and then went to open houses with that list in hand, literally giving a school grades on all of the criteria that matter to you. Consider weighing them, too. What happens to everyone going to one open house after the other is that every new criteria pop up that you haven't considered and you end up in a knot and ever more confused sorting them out after the fact. For example, certainly for PS/PK and elementary in general, location may be a criteria that you value highly. Some of the criteria may even help you in deciding what schools to visit in the first place.

[Anonymous]

I think that the # of available spaces etc is really only viewable once you start the application. I didn't even bother to start the application until I started the open house process (maybe my idiocy). It would be nice if it were just on the "school search" pages.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Maybe there is some standard way of informing parents about their chances of getting in BEFORE the open house, and BEFORE they do their lottery selections. Could they add a column on the myschoolsdc site? They have a lot of information on there for all of the schools, but no standard piece of data for % accept rate.

I think it would be very helpful for each school to state what waitlist # they were on as of count day for each grade, as well as how many IB/OOB/sibs etc. were accepted as of count day.

I don't think schools will share this info, because from what I've heard there are sometimes work-arounds that happen where the school doesn't follow the waitlist to the letter.

[Anonymous]

Even under the old system, I went to open houses for every school to which I applied (and I applied to 11). But I did it by starting early. I went to several the year before my child was eligble just so that I would have an understanding of what was out there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Maybe there is some standard way of informing parents about their chances of getting in BEFORE the open house, and BEFORE they do their lottery selections. Could they add a column on the myschoolsdc site? They have a lot of information on there for all of the schools, but no standard piece of data for % accept rate.

I think it would be very helpful for each school to state what waitlist # they were on as of count day for each grade, as well as how many IB/OOB/sibs etc. were accepted as of count day.

I don't think schools will share this info, because from what I've heard there are sometimes work-arounds that happen where the school doesn't follow the waitlist to the letter.

The Cap City administration representative at the charter school expo said there were going to be audits this year throughout the year to make sure that the waitlist was being properly followed, for any school participating in the common lottery.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Maybe there is some standard way of informing parents about their chances of getting in BEFORE the open house, and BEFORE they do their lottery selections. Could they add a column on the myschoolsdc site? They have a lot of information on there for all of the schools, but no standard piece of data for % accept rate.

They kind of do that for the DCPS schools, with # of available spaces and # of applicants last year. You can see, at least with Ross, that the number of available spaces (3) and number of applications last year (95) that your chances of getting in are very slim, no matter what.

Last year, for PS3, we went to a lot of open houses because I thought it was the responsible thing to do. Why clog up the application pool if we weren't really interested in the school? Obviously that ended up being really disappointing, because we fell in love with schools that we ended up with triple digit waitlist numbers for.

This year, I feel like we have a much better understanding of the various schools, including how we'd rank them, so we aren't going to any open houses. The places we were interested in last year are still on our list, in the order they were in (since we actually ranked everything by preference in private, like a common application). If she doesn't get in anywhere, we're also fine with where we are.

True, you can find this information, if you know how to do it. It is not user-friendly, and I only knew about it because I followed the lottery last year (when my daughter was just 1!) to understand it better. And, it is only for DCPS and doesn't tell you how far down the waitlist they eventually went. Ross is different, because it's very sought-after; I have been surprised when talking to other EOTP schools to find out how far down the waitlist they actually went. These are not Ross-type schools, but still fairly desirable schools for PK3. Some charters never even put their initial waitlist/acceptance list online. It would be great if this was all on the myschooldc site next year.

I agree that it would be helpful to know how deep the bench was for how many spots last year. I'd imagine that for DCPS, this information would be fairly easy to obtain, since they have # of applicants already. I was actually impressed and pleasantly surprised that the # of available spots and # of 2013/2014 applications was right there on the list for DCPS. I understand why that information isn't there for charters this year, but maybe next year it will be, since all the data will be collected on the myschooldc site anyway.

[Anonymous]

Schools could easily project how many seats will be taken up by sibs too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

The Cap City administration representative at the charter school expo said there were going to be audits this year throughout the year to make sure that the waitlist was being properly followed, for any school participating in the common lottery.

Audited by whom?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

The Cap City administration representative at the charter school expo said there were going to be audits this year throughout the year to make sure that the waitlist was being properly followed, for any school participating in the common lottery.

Audited by whom?

I would assume OSSE, but she didn't say.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Maybe there is some standard way of informing parents about their chances of getting in BEFORE the open house, and BEFORE they do their lottery selections. Could they add a column on the myschoolsdc site? They have a lot of information on there for all of the schools, but no standard piece of data for % accept rate.

They kind of do that for the DCPS schools, with # of available spaces and # of applicants last year. You can see, at least with Ross, that the number of available spaces (3) and number of applications last year (95) that your chances of getting in are very slim, no matter what.

Last year, for PS3, we went to a lot of open houses because I thought it was the responsible thing to do. Why clog up the application pool if we weren't really interested in the school? Obviously that ended up being really disappointing, because we fell in love with schools that we ended up with triple digit waitlist numbers for.

This year, I feel like we have a much better understanding of the various schools, including how we'd rank them, so we aren't going to any open houses. The places we were interested in last year are still on our list, in the order they were in (since we actually ranked everything by preference in private, like a common application). If she doesn't get in anywhere, we're also fine with where we are.

Are you sure there are only 3 available PS3 spaces at Ross? I thought there were about 15 in the class.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Schools could easily project how many seats will be taken up by sibs too.

Many schools already do this, but you have to go to the Open Houses (and often talk to the principal afterward) to get the numbers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

The Cap City administration representative at the charter school expo said there were going to be audits this year throughout the year to make sure that the waitlist was being properly followed, for any school participating in the common lottery.

Audited by whom?

I would assume OSSE, but she didn't say.

I really doubt this is going to happen. They send off those waitlists and they don't think twice about them after Sept 10.

[Anonymous]

I agree there is a LOT of variability in how waitlists are handled--a distressing amount for potential PS3 parents, in fact. At our current EOTP school, which is considered pretty desirable, we were IB and in the single digits all summer. We only go in after lobbying hard and hounding the woman in charge of the list with weekly calls and visits. In the end, we realized there is probably no real "list" at all--it may be something she just sort of has in her head.

At the WOTP school we looked at this past week, the principal said that she works the list like it's her full time job. She calls and emails everyone as soon as the list is official. If you go away on vacation and want to give her a different number or email to use while you're away, she'll use that one instead. It was pretty incredible to see the different attitudes, and sad, too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Maybe there is some standard way of informing parents about their chances of getting in BEFORE the open house, and BEFORE they do their lottery selections. Could they add a column on the myschoolsdc site? They have a lot of information on there for all of the schools, but no standard piece of data for % accept rate.

They kind of do that for the DCPS schools, with # of available spaces and # of applicants last year. You can see, at least with Ross, that the number of available spaces (3) and number of applications last year (95) that your chances of getting in are very slim, no matter what.

Last year, for PS3, we went to a lot of open houses because I thought it was the responsible thing to do. Why clog up the application pool if we weren't really interested in the school? Obviously that ended up being really disappointing, because we fell in love with schools that we ended up with triple digit waitlist numbers for.

This year, I feel like we have a much better understanding of the various schools, including how we'd rank them, so we aren't going to any open houses. The places we were interested in last year are still on our list, in the order they were in (since we actually ranked everything by preference in private, like a common application). If she doesn't get in anywhere, we're also fine with where we are.

Are you sure there are only 3 available PS3 spaces at Ross? I thought there were about 15 in the class.

Sorry. That was for PK4. I don't know how many PS3 seats are available at Ross this year. I know that last year, the waitlist had IB kids with siblings on it, so my guess is that it will be the same this year. But you'd have to sign into the application and select Ross as one of your choices.That will tell you what the numbers actually are.