MSDC Seats and Waitlist Offer Data - updated to include 2025-26 data

[Anonymous]

My heart breaks for schools like Sela. Really incredible community and to see such little interest..

There are really great teachers there. Wonderful parents.

I know why. To all the posts above. People more comfortable with DCPS schools, less schools on their application, etc.

Just hate to see it.

[Anonymous]

Does anyone know how many students there are per grade at MacArthur? For 9th grade, the school had 220 lottery seats, which seems high, without knowing how many kids will go there from Hardy.

How many 9th graders are there this year? It looks like the school had 60 lottery seats for next year's 10th grade, and there's no wait list.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hill parent of rising PK3 kiddo here. Some things I found interesting:

- SWS gave all their slots to kids with siblings attending. Not even 1 no preference got in
- Maury only had 2 regular inbounds accepted, rest had siblings
- AppleTree Lincoln Park supposedly had 80 PK3 spots! That's more than double any previous years (alternated between 25 and 40). Makes me wonder if that was a mistake. They also accepted 10 PK4 where past few years had been 0. Did they expand or something? I can't imagine where they'd have space to.
- Miner had a lot fewer "early action" slots taken and a shorter waitlist than usual. Maybe because they all went to ATLP??

On AppleTree, maybe just a new strategy for managing the waitlist and enrollment? Offer a bunch of seats up front so when students decline the seat you don't have to go so deep into the waitlist in the fall? Last year they had 25 matches on results day but made 55 waitlist offers by October = 80 offers.

Seems a little irresponsible, no? What if all 80 enroll? Even 25 kids could decide not to enroll and that would still be 13 more than AT LP has ever accepted at the PK3 level.

Maybe.

SY24-25 they made 80 offers (match + waitlist) and ended up with 31 enrolled.

SY23-24 they made 66 offers and ended up with 39 enrolled.

SY22-23 they made 71 offers and ended up with 24 enrolled.

SY21-22 they made 76 offers and ended up with 39 enrolled.

It's a backup option for a lot of Hill families. There's always a ton of waitlist movement.

Right, but those excess offers were made as spots opened up at the school? In those other years, there was never a possibility that 66, 71, or 76 people could actually enroll in the school. Here, 80 kids could enroll at the school tomorrow and they’d be screwed.

Yes, but they won't because Apple Tree is often a backup option. Some people will get into other schools, some parents will lose jobs and move back to their hometown, and some parents will just decide the kid isn't quite ready for school yet.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Does anyone know how many students there are per grade at MacArthur? For 9th grade, the school had 220 lottery seats, which seems high, without knowing how many kids will go there from Hardy.

How many 9th graders are there this year? It looks like the school had 60 lottery seats for next year's 10th grade, and there's no wait list.

I don't know, but I do remember that last year MacArthur didn't offer any OOB seats in the lottery initially because they wanted to see who enrolled. They clearly realized that was a bad plan.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My heart breaks for schools like Sela. Really incredible community and to see such little interest..

There are really great teachers there. Wonderful parents.

I know why. To all the posts above. People more comfortable with DCPS schools, less schools on their application, etc.

Just hate to see it.

Sela has been in this exact situation for ages. It will be fine.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Does anyone know how many students there are per grade at MacArthur? For 9th grade, the school had 220 lottery seats, which seems high, without knowing how many kids will go there from Hardy.

How many 9th graders are there this year? It looks like the school had 60 lottery seats for next year's 10th grade, and there's no wait list.

https://edscape.dc.gov/page/enrollment-trends-specific-public-schools

This year 188 in 9th, 147 in 10th, 55 in 11th. Last year 192 in 9th, 46 in 10th.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My heart breaks for schools like Sela. Really incredible community and to see such little interest..

There are really great teachers there. Wonderful parents.

I know why. To all the posts above. People more comfortable with DCPS schools, less schools on their application, etc.

Just hate to see it.

Sela has been in this exact situation for ages. It will be fine.

This seems worse that usual.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My heart breaks for schools like Sela. Really incredible community and to see such little interest..

There are really great teachers there. Wonderful parents.

I know why. To all the posts above. People more comfortable with DCPS schools, less schools on their application, etc.

Just hate to see it.

Sela has been in this exact situation for ages. It will be fine.

This seems worse that usual.

It's not really, the fluctuations are not statistically significant. And all of the schools are a little down because of declining birthrates, etc. More worried that there will be more mass firings with feds - that will hurt enrollment everywhere.
.

[Anonymous]

Do you think Sela is suffering from association with Israel at the moment?

[Anonymous]

When I look at Banneker, I see that there were 22 seats in 10th grade available, 80 applications and no matches.

I interpret that as "people who didn't get selected in the selective school application process (either by being negged or not applying at all) still put in Banneker and when their number hit, they didnt get matched because they weren't on the 'selectively admitted' pool.

Is that probably the right interpretation?

[Anonymous]

and the same for walls, basically - they have space for 5 10th graders, admitted 11 by their process, but there were 119 applicants anyway...108 of which either didn't do or didn't succeed in admissions process.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:When I look at Banneker, I see that there were 22 seats in 10th grade available, 80 applications and no matches.

I interpret that as "people who didn't get selected in the selective school application process (either by being negged or not applying at all) still put in Banneker and when their number hit, they didnt get matched because they weren't on the 'selectively admitted' pool.

Is that probably the right interpretation?

No, it can mean they were in the selectively admitted pool but matched with something they ranked higher, for example Latin, DCI, or Walls.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Do you think Sela is suffering from association with Israel at the moment?

I'm not the "sorry for Sela" poster but I really don't think that's it. Sela is in a weird far corner of the city and so it's only a commutable option for a segment of Wards 4 & 5. It's got a niche focus with Hebrew immersion, so even parents that are gung-ho on immersion put it behind the Spanish/French/Chinese options due to their own unfamiliarity with the language. It's rarely #1 on people's lists for that reason, but it does very well for the kids that end up there and if you meet a Sela parent you hear glowing reviews.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:sela and shining stars are in deep trouble with way less matches than seats

Sela has always been a backup option for pre-k. People LOVE it once they're there, but if you search Sela on this forum you'll find that 80%+ of references are people being advised to add it as a post-lottery option when they strike out everywhere else.

I think the location also hurts Sela. If it were closer to a metro, or to more densely-populated neighborhoods, people would be more interested. Also if it went through 8th grade.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hill parent of rising PK3 kiddo here. Some things I found interesting:

- SWS gave all their slots to kids with siblings attending. Not even 1 no preference got in
- Maury only had 2 regular inbounds accepted, rest had siblings
- AppleTree Lincoln Park supposedly had 80 PK3 spots! That's more than double any previous years (alternated between 25 and 40). Makes me wonder if that was a mistake. They also accepted 10 PK4 where past few years had been 0. Did they expand or something? I can't imagine where they'd have space to.
- Miner had a lot fewer "early action" slots taken and a shorter waitlist than usual. Maybe because they all went to ATLP??

On AppleTree, maybe just a new strategy for managing the waitlist and enrollment? Offer a bunch of seats up front so when students decline the seat you don't have to go so deep into the waitlist in the fall? Last year they had 25 matches on results day but made 55 waitlist offers by October = 80 offers.

Seems a little irresponsible, no? What if all 80 enroll? Even 25 kids could decide not to enroll and that would still be 13 more than AT LP has ever accepted at the PK3 level.

Maybe.

SY24-25 they made 80 offers (match + waitlist) and ended up with 31 enrolled.

SY23-24 they made 66 offers and ended up with 39 enrolled.

SY22-23 they made 71 offers and ended up with 24 enrolled.

SY21-22 they made 76 offers and ended up with 39 enrolled.

It's a backup option for a lot of Hill families. There's always a ton of waitlist movement.

Right, but those excess offers were made as spots opened up at the school? In those other years, there was never a possibility that 66, 71, or 76 people could actually enroll in the school. Here, 80 kids could enroll at the school tomorrow and they’d be screwed.

Yes, but they won't because Apple Tree is often a backup option. Some people will get into other schools, some parents will lose jobs and move back to their hometown, and some parents will just decide the kid isn't quite ready for school yet.

I wonder if their plan is that if they wind up overenrolled to encourage people to go to Oklahoma Ave, Waterfront, or Lenfant.