Lottery results are up

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Low number at DC Bilingual PK4. Not sure what to do now as we were thinking of moving to the suburbs for schools before we hit a point of no return with 5th grade lottery results (IB MS is McFarland), and it’s not like DCI is a guarantee

Looks like last year they made 6 PK4 offers by August and 12 by October, so you may have a good chance. When were you planning to move to the suburbs?

Not until K. On one hand, if we are happy with our current school and are moving anyway, why bother changing. On the other hand, maybe DCB would change our perspective on leaving DC, though feeder pattern is not a sure thing. DCB is extremely convenient for us which is another plus, more so than our current ES or IB ES.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For 1st Grade honestly, not too bad. Hope there's some hope but not worrying about it. Turning down Barnard where we matched.

Eaton WL #16
Janney WL #16
Murch WL #16
Yu Ying PCS WL #18
Stoddert WL#17
Mann WL #7
Maury WL #24
Hyde-Addison WL #11
Key WL #11
ITDS WL #9

You've got some chance at Stoddert, MAYBE Yu Ying or Mann if you get super lucky. But you should almost certainly get a spot at HA before school starts. Good luck!

H-A took 9 kids for 1st grade with no preference in 25-26 cycle. Good chance OP sneaks in, maybe 60% odds (at least 1-2 kids in spots 1-10 will go elsewhere).

I don’t think they will this year and I doubt the poster with the sibling in prek3 will get in. Don’t count on it.

another poster here echoing that folks with preK kids need to look at the waitlist data themselves and not go by what people on DCUM/in the neighborhood tell them. People told me that I would for sure get off the WL for my inbound and I did not. PreK demand in a neighborhood can vary a lot year by year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For 1st Grade honestly, not too bad. Hope there's some hope but not worrying about it. Turning down Barnard where we matched.

Eaton WL #16
Janney WL #16
Murch WL #16
Yu Ying PCS WL #18
Stoddert WL#17
Mann WL #7
Maury WL #24
Hyde-Addison WL #11
Key WL #11
ITDS WL #9

You've got some chance at Stoddert, MAYBE Yu Ying or Mann if you get super lucky. But you should almost certainly get a spot at HA before school starts. Good luck!

H-A took 9 kids for 1st grade with no preference in 25-26 cycle. Good chance OP sneaks in, maybe 60% odds (at least 1-2 kids in spots 1-10 will go elsewhere).

I don’t think they will this year and I doubt the poster with the sibling in prek3 will get in. Don’t count on it.

another poster here echoing that folks with preK kids need to look at the waitlist data themselves and not go by what people on DCUM/in the neighborhood tell them. People told me that I would for sure get off the WL for my inbound and I did not. PreK demand in a neighborhood can vary a lot year by year.

Also a reminder that you may get bumped down on the waitlist if/when siblings get in. What may look like a sure thing now can change dramatically if there is a lot of movement in other grades.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For 1st Grade honestly, not too bad. Hope there's some hope but not worrying about it. Turning down Barnard where we matched.

Eaton WL #16
Janney WL #16
Murch WL #16
Yu Ying PCS WL #18
Stoddert WL#17
Mann WL #7
Maury WL #24
Hyde-Addison WL #11
Key WL #11
ITDS WL #9

You've got some chance at Stoddert, MAYBE Yu Ying or Mann if you get super lucky. But you should almost certainly get a spot at HA before school starts. Good luck!

H-A took 9 kids for 1st grade with no preference in 25-26 cycle. Good chance OP sneaks in, maybe 60% odds (at least 1-2 kids in spots 1-10 will go elsewhere).

I don’t think they will this year and I doubt the poster with the sibling in prek3 will get in. Don’t count on it.

another poster here echoing that folks with preK kids need to look at the waitlist data themselves and not go by what people on DCUM/in the neighborhood tell them. People told me that I would for sure get off the WL for my inbound and I did not. PreK demand in a neighborhood can vary a lot year by year.

Also a reminder that you may get bumped down on the waitlist if/when siblings get in. What may look like a sure thing now can change dramatically if there is a lot of movement in other grades.

Yes I am looking at the ha waitlist data! Take a look yourself!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For 1st Grade honestly, not too bad. Hope there's some hope but not worrying about it. Turning down Barnard where we matched.

Eaton WL #16
Janney WL #16
Murch WL #16
Yu Ying PCS WL #18
Stoddert WL#17
Mann WL #7
Maury WL #24
Hyde-Addison WL #11
Key WL #11
ITDS WL #9

You've got some chance at Stoddert, MAYBE Yu Ying or Mann if you get super lucky. But you should almost certainly get a spot at HA before school starts. Good luck!

H-A took 9 kids for 1st grade with no preference in 25-26 cycle. Good chance OP sneaks in, maybe 60% odds (at least 1-2 kids in spots 1-10 will go elsewhere).

I don’t think they will this year and I doubt the poster with the sibling in prek3 will get in. Don’t count on it.

another poster here echoing that folks with preK kids need to look at the waitlist data themselves and not go by what people on DCUM/in the neighborhood tell them. People told me that I would for sure get off the WL for my inbound and I did not. PreK demand in a neighborhood can vary a lot year by year.

Also a reminder that you may get bumped down on the waitlist if/when siblings get in. What may look like a sure thing now can change dramatically if there is a lot of movement in other grades.

+1 Unless you've already got a sibling at the school the initial waitlist position can decieve you into unwarranted optimism. We started #5 on a WL last year that cleared 9 spots, and when the dust cleared we were in position #1 on the WL. There's a lot of getting nudged back a spot or two, and then seeing someone get in and getting your hopes up, and then another sibling offered gets pulled ahead of you. I would be surprised if an initial WL position of 11 for H-A gets in this year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:oh man - older kid got into Hyde-Addison, younger sibling is wait-listed for PK3 there. As of now, both of them could also attend the immersion charter elementary where older kid has been attending for a few years.

Commute is - I won't get into the particulars, but both of them are roughly the same distance from our home, and for various reasons represent about the same level of convenience/inconvenience.

Hyde-Addison is...on paper, at least...light years ahead of our current charter in almost every respect - academics and test scores, physical facilities, supplemental activities, resources, surrounding neighborhood, an actual feeder pattern (even if it's not our ideal) - but two: the language instruction...which we do care about...and the community - leadership, staff, parents, kids. I mean, I'm sure they have great people at H-A too! But we don't know them, and we DO know and love the community at our charter.

Oh man...I could see this dilemma coming. I know we're lucky to have it! But that doesn't make it less agonizing.

(And even though younger sibling is pretty high on the waitlist, there's obviously no guarantee. so we could be in a situation where we've pulled older kid from the charter but are still sending younger kid - which would be only slightly inconvenient for us, but probably very awkward...)

One thing is that once you enroll your older kid, your younger kid should jump to the top of the waitlist. This is still not certain, but the odds are better.

As someone who has moved schools -- you will connect with your new community, too. Don't make school choices based on community.

This. Enroll the eldest ASAP and your younger kid moves up the waitlist.

We are currently at H-A, our youngest is accepted for PK3 (in-boundary + sibling preferences). We know a few other families with the same dual preferences who likely also got in. For 25-26 PK3, every kid had an in-boundary preference. You can find last year's results here: https://enrolldcps.dc.gov/node/61https://enrolldcps.dc.gov/node/61

Click Results Dashboard for SY19-20 through SY25-26 Seats
Go filter for Hyde, then filter to show only PK3 lottery results for the school.

Anyways, H-A is a good community with good neighborhood feel + a solid set of committed OOB families. You won't feel out of place. If dual language is important to you, you'll need to supplement. H-A's IEP services are excellent (I know from experience)

re enrolling asap: see, I suspected this...but that was exactly the kind of decision pressure we were hoping didn't exist! oh well...thank you so much for the protip!!!!!
And the community and IEP assurances mean a lot (This is a factor for one kid - with the other, it's the opposite concern...they are ahead in most areas and need to be challenged in a way that we're not sure the charter can do, given where most of the kids are on testing...)
Random Hyde-Addison question, given the number of OOB students: I wonder if there ever any parent-organized transportation options? pools, buses, etc? That won't make or break the decision, but it would be nice...it's an option we have at the current school.

There’s a bus that comes from the JBAB military base, and some carpools. But nothing like I’ve heard for Yu Ying, Latin, etc. If you have a neighborhood Facebook or Nextdoor group you could put feelers out - even finding one family to split commutes with really makes a difference (I say from experience).

My 504-plan kiddo also needed more above-grade academic peers. They are doing great on that front as well. Teacher differentiates in the classroom and there are afterschool accelerations like “math club.” I’m confident your child will be happy and you’ll adjust to the commute, if you decide to take the spot.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For 1st Grade honestly, not too bad. Hope there's some hope but not worrying about it. Turning down Barnard where we matched.

Eaton WL #16
Janney WL #16
Murch WL #16
Yu Ying PCS WL #18
Stoddert WL#17
Mann WL #7
Maury WL #24
Hyde-Addison WL #11
Key WL #11
ITDS WL #9

You've got some chance at Stoddert, MAYBE Yu Ying or Mann if you get super lucky. But you should almost certainly get a spot at HA before school starts. Good luck!

H-A took 9 kids for 1st grade with no preference in 25-26 cycle. Good chance OP sneaks in, maybe 60% odds (at least 1-2 kids in spots 1-10 will go elsewhere).

I don’t think they will this year and I doubt the poster with the sibling in prek3 will get in. Don’t count on it.

another poster here echoing that folks with preK kids need to look at the waitlist data themselves and not go by what people on DCUM/in the neighborhood tell them. People told me that I would for sure get off the WL for my inbound and I did not. PreK demand in a neighborhood can vary a lot year by year.

Also a reminder that you may get bumped down on the waitlist if/when siblings get in. What may look like a sure thing now can change dramatically if there is a lot of movement in other grades.

+1 Unless you've already got a sibling at the school the initial waitlist position can decieve you into unwarranted optimism. We started #5 on a WL last year that cleared 9 spots, and when the dust cleared we were in position #1 on the WL. There's a lot of getting nudged back a spot or two, and then seeing someone get in and getting your hopes up, and then another sibling offered gets pulled ahead of you. I would be surprised if an initial WL position of 11 for H-A gets in this year.

Same. We made the mistake of looking at the number of WL offers made in previous years, comparing that to our very decent WL number, and assuming that told us anything about our chances...to be honest, I never figured out or tried to track down whether the bigger issue overall was siblings getting added to the top of the list, or people moving into the district over the summer (because they were very good planners and bought IB, or because they got screwed in the lottery and rush-rented IB)...but we were high on the list - went higher - then kept getting lower and lower for months, until the very end when we shot up the list again as most people declined September offers, ending October 1 just short of admission.

The system sucks when you've got just one kid in the game - the only benefit for families with more than one child is that eventually the unfairness works to your advantage/balances out when your other kid is in the mix. Doesn't help only children, but it probably levels out the unfairness quotient for most families.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Low number at DC Bilingual PK4. Not sure what to do now as we were thinking of moving to the suburbs for schools before we hit a point of no return with 5th grade lottery results (IB MS is McFarland), and it’s not like DCI is a guarantee

If you’re happy with your current ES or would be happy at DCB, why not wait until middle school to move to the suburbs depending on the outcome of MS lottery?

Looks like last year they made 6 PK4 offers by August and 12 by October, so you may have a good chance. When were you planning to move to the suburbs?

Not until K. On one hand, if we are happy with our current school and are moving anyway, why bother changing. On the other hand, maybe DCB would change our perspective on leaving DC, though feeder pattern is not a sure thing. DCB is extremely convenient for us which is another plus, more so than our current ES or IB ES.

[Anonymous]

If you’re happy with your current ES or would be happy at DCB, why not wait until middle school to move to the suburbs depending on the outcome of MS lottery?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Low number at DC Bilingual PK4. Not sure what to do now as we were thinking of moving to the suburbs for schools before we hit a point of no return with 5th grade lottery results (IB MS is McFarland), and it’s not like DCI is a guarantee

Looks like last year they made 6 PK4 offers by August and 12 by October, so you may have a good chance. When were you planning to move to the suburbs?

Not until K. On one hand, if we are happy with our current school and are moving anyway, why bother changing. On the other hand, maybe DCB would change our perspective on leaving DC, though feeder pattern is not a sure thing. DCB is extremely convenient for us which is another plus, more so than our current ES or IB ES.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Can someone please explain to me what does “ineligible” mean? 9th grade #1 Banneker marked as ineligible but got into our #2

https://www.myschooldc.org/faq/lottery-results-and-status-definitions

Ineligible
The school determined that the student is not eligible to attend. For example, DC Public Schools (DCPS) selective high schools and programs may deem students as “ineligible” if they do not meet the school’s entrance requirements and are neither matched nor waitlisted by the school after the selection process. Another example, a DCPS dual language program may deem a student ineligible if they do not demonstrate the language proficiency required. If you have questions about eligibility, please contact the school directly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Waitlisted #15 at both Mann and Janney (no preference) for PK4. Based on historic waitlist movement, looks like we might have a chance at Mann. I'm in no way optimistic about Janney. Guess we'll see how things progress over the summer.

That said, we matched at Key for PK4 (no preference). Pleasantly surprised and excited about the match. I think our kid would be happy at Key, so no complaints on our end either way.

We matched at Key for PK4 last year with no preference of any kind - and were surprised and thrilled too! we visited, it looks lovely! (if a bit noisy - it's directly in the DCA flight path and our playground time was LOUD, felt like a flight was buzzing us LOW every 10 min or so)

...until we realized that the commute would KILL us - unless you live in the Georgetown or Palisades area, Key isn't actually "on the way" to anywhere, it would be a long out of the way drive (no good public transportation option) every day. And the on-site PK aftercare isn't guaranteed (there's a waitlist), and the only other nearby aftercare options are PRICEY - pricey enough that in the end we realized Key was actually more expensive than the very good private school that also accepted us with financial aid. And even if you want to see about organizing a parent-funded bus...there are only a handful of OOB parents and the school won't tell you what areas they're in, let alone give you any of their contact info before enrollment (we asked).

So that was kind of a high...followed by a crash. It was heartbreaking, but we had to turn it down.

+1 we had the same experience, and it was agonizing to turn down the seat.
OP - I highly recommend testing the commute to and from the school at the times you would be doing it for a full week to get a feel for how it would wear on you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Well, I was hoping for slightly better numbers, but as expected I'll be watching waitlists all summer and fall, looks like. But we matched with John Lewis which we're excited about!

For K:
1 Ross Elementary School Waitlisted - #24
2 Garrison Elementary School Waitlisted - #10
3 Inspired Teaching Demonstration PCS Waitlisted - #17
4 E.L. Haynes PCS - Elementary School Waitlisted - #6
5 John Lewis Elementary School Match (enrollment pending)
6 Lee Montessori PCS - Brookland Sibling Offered Waitlisted - #1

For 1st Grade:
1 Ross Elementary School Waitlisted - #45
2 Garrison Elementary School Waitlisted - #20
3 Inspired Teaching Demonstration PCS Waitlisted - #35
4 E.L. Haynes PCS - Elementary School Waitlisted - #8
5 John Lewis Elementary School Sibling Offered Waitlisted - #1
6 Lee Montessori PCS - Brookland Match (enrollment pending)

We put Lee down without much thought and will be turning down that offer - but is it just me or is it crazy that we got an offer for 1st from them with what must be a pretty crappy lottery number? They must be really falling in popularity.

Ha! I was wondering about you! I think these numbers are actually pretty good. But honestly, Lewis is great (or so I hear).

+1 I was also invested in the outcome for this family. I've heard great things about Lewis (have good friends with two kids there who wound up turning down a spot at a JKLM last year to stay) and think the PP will discover that the joy of being at a neighborhood school with a lot of community buy in will trump whatever perceived advantages they currently see at some of these further flung options.

+1. Having a good neighborhood school makes life so much easier and better during the elementary years. I would much rather do this than commute to a far school.

You may feel different as you get to upper elementary. Our kid is at a popular title 1 school with a nice community but many kids are struggling with grade level work and she is bored.

Which school?

[Anonymous]

#2 for Janney- fourth grade. Any chance?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My rising 9th grader also marked "ineligible" at Banneker (but decent waitlist at Walls, go figure!) even though she has stellar grades and had a good interview and has a sibling at the top of her class at Banneker. Must have been a really competitive year. Congrats to everyone who got what they hoped for! For those who didn't, hope your kids don't take it personally. The system is complete and total crapshoot even for the competitive schools.

Interesting. I have to say, I didn't think Banneker was all that tough of an admit. I honestly thought they accepted nearly all their applicants and weren't like Walls.

DCUM certainly pushes that narrative.

+1. Banneker has been a tough admit for years. The people posting about Banneker on DCUM tend to be 7-10 years out of date, imo.

Even all the way back to the SY14-15 lottery, Banneker had 754 students apply for 160 seats (21% matched). Walls had 1097 apply for 139 seats (13% matched).

Last year it was 1159 applicants for 254 seats (22% matched) at Banneker and 1361 applicants for 190 seats (14% matched) at Walls.

Banneker has been competitive for a long time.

I believe it but pretty much everyone we know who applied got into Banneker and/or Walls this year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yes my DD had interview at Banneker but no invite from SWW … straight A student every single term in middle school, two AP classes, glowing references … thought interview went ok but she wasn’t selected … honestly I also thought great grades will get you in.

This is the profile of most kids we know who did NOT get interviews at Walls.