Lottery Debrief

[Anonymous]

After tons of research, our number was pretty bad, and we ended up at our IB school, which I really never thought I'd send my daughter to, but considering how close it is, the moderate buzz (potentially one of those over-hyped schools), and the fact that a neighbor-friend is also sending their kid, we're going. This leads me to wonder whether one of the side goals of the common lottery was to get people applying for schools they never would have considered otherwise. I even *visited* public schools I never would have even known about, had it not been for my desire to find the best possible public school. So -- we'll see how it goes. Well, I hope.

I really do believe that was the primary objective. Everyone was applying to the same schools and getting these astronomically high wait list numbers and then walking away from the whole thing when they didn't get what they wanted. Meanwhile, less popular schools were leaving seats unfilled and consequently losing much-needed funding.

Like I said above, we had maybe one discussion in our house about school choices when applying through the old system. I visited maybe 2 of the schools and went by word of mouth for the rest because it was really a process of knocking on all doors and seeing which one would open. We didn't get any good wait list numbers that year, so I stopped thinking about it once the lottery was over, but I can't imagine the stress of waiting all summer and into the school year to see how things would shake out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If they did this, then there would be trades possible where I get into A but prefer B and you get into B but prefer A. The way it works now, everyone gets into the highest choice school possible.

Everyone would still get into their highest choice possible, because once the computer does the individual school lotteries it reconciles the bigger list, dropping people off of any matched slot or waitlist slot lower than their highest accepted slot. It would still give everyone the highest choice they got into, but not damn you with one single number for all 12.

It would not maximize the number of people who got into high-ranked choices. I might really want Mandarin immersion and put YY first (assuming it is in the common lottery), and have Cap City as, say, my 8th choice. But through separate lotteries, I get into CC but not YY. Someone else gets into YY and not CC. We can't trade spots. Instead, I go to CC and they go to YY, and we both could have crappy waitlist numbers at the schools we prefer.

The algorithm my school dc uses is the best one. Even if it entered you into 12 separate lotteries, that would not change the # of seats available at every school, so the outcome would be the same in terms of # of seats available--only it would be much worse at getting people into the schools that they prefer.

I say this ad someone who had an awful lottery draw and was almost the last PK3 # on the MV waitlist, my first choice. If it were not for IB preference at an unpopular school, I would have been shut out. The really problem is that there are not enough good seats to meet demand. No lottery can change that.

It's too late at night for me to write anything long. Suffice to say, the individual 12 lotteries-within-one-common-lottery that I was describing would still have another step after the individual school lotteries, so no, if person A wanted YY but got IT and person B wanted IT but got YY, there would be more trading/exchanges based on applicant ranking of schools that the people who get YY really wanted YY, and the people who got IT really wanted IT.

[Anonymous]

No offense, but nothing you've said so far makes any sense at all. You really think your musings are better than a Nobel Prize-winning economist's algorithm?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No offense, but nothing you've said so far makes any sense at all. You really think your musings are better than a Nobel Prize-winning economist's algorithm?

This. The system worked perfectly, you just lost. Try again next year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No offense, but nothing you've said so far makes any sense at all. You really think your musings are better than a Nobel Prize-winning economist's algorithm?

This. The system worked perfectly, you just lost. Try again next year.

But the thing is, with education in general, nobody should "lose." It's a broken system and the lottery is simply trying to equalize a broken system. Makes no sense to me...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No offense, but nothing you've said so far makes any sense at all. You really think your musings are better than a Nobel Prize-winning economist's algorithm?

This. The system worked perfectly, you just lost. Try again next year.

Actually I got into our 1st choice school (and this year younger sib is getting in) 2 yrs ago, so my interest in this is actually purely because the process interests me. And ignoring your snark but to answer your question, no, I would never say my musings are better than the Nobel prize winner who designed the algorithm, but I stand by my observations as being things to consider. I couldn't design an algorithm for my life, but I have worked in applications/enrollment and my opinion is no less valid than anyone else's in this discussion just because I don't have a Nobel prize. I would also never question the "authority" to have an opinion of anyone who disagrees with me.

Maybe you have delusions about the effect/weight of discussing these things on an anonymous message board, but I'm quite clear, this is just a discussion that at least for me I'm engaging in because I find it fascinating and I know so many families affected by what happened this year and what happens next year.

[Anonymous]

I just don't see how it would work fairly pp (and I'm no statistician either.) What you'd be introducing under the "individual lotteries" scenario would be an element whereby your chances of admittance would possibly be weighted by your ranking of the school. So, you'd be introducing a way "to game" the system -- a preference would be placed on how YOU ranked the school.

By making something even slightly "gameable" it unfairly weights the process in favor of the people who have the capacity to figure it out (or pay someone to do it for them.)

The way the lottery worked last year was at least fair. It was entirely random, you were randomly awarded or randomly screwed, but it was random. Yes, someone who ranked the school #6 that you ranked #1 got into it and you got waitlisted, but that's because he got lucky and you didn't. He didn't get into his 1-5 because other people were luckier than him, and he's luckier than you. And this is the only way to truly keep it "fair."

Otherwise, I can guarantee a pop-up industry of consultants charging $500 for rankings overnight.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I just don't see how it would work fairly pp (and I'm no statistician either.) What you'd be introducing under the "individual lotteries" scenario would be an element whereby your chances of admittance would possibly be weighted by your ranking of the school. So, you'd be introducing a way "to game" the system -- a preference would be placed on how YOU ranked the school.

By making something even slightly "gameable" it unfairly weights the process in favor of the people who have the capacity to figure it out (or pay someone to do it for them.)

The way the lottery worked last year was at least fair. It was entirely random, you were randomly awarded or randomly screwed, but it was random. Yes, someone who ranked the school #6 that you ranked #1 got into it and you got waitlisted, but that's because he got lucky and you didn't. He didn't get into his 1-5 because other people were luckier than him, and he's luckier than you. And this is the only way to truly keep it "fair."

Otherwise, I can guarantee a pop-up industry of consultants charging $500 for rankings overnight.

I guess I'm just not "strategic" enough PP. Because the order of my rankings of schools already would have mattered this past year (get in to #3 and you're off the waitlist for #4-12), I would have the exact same list whether the computer searched for #1 rankings first or not. So I still don't understand how adding a measure where the computer considers #1 rankings for each school first, then #2, etc, and then reconciles all the "individual lotteries" with the overall rankings of each applicant and what schools they got into to get a final matched list... I don't see how that change changes anything about the order I put my schools in. They wanted "true order" this past year, and I would have probably done a combo of fantasy schools in the top, good and acceptable schools in my middle choices, and "safety schools" (which we all found out were not so safe this year) last. So not a "true list" since I could fill up my list with 12 HRCS and HRDCPS.

I don't see how weighting the selections by how parents ranked the schools (as well as other factors and also random lottery numbers within groups) changes how people choose to rank their schools. You do see a difference, and that's fine, I just don't understand the difference you're trying to point out. In the end, as you or another PP pointed out, this is just a discussion anyway, I don't have any reason to believe that Common Lottery staff are here basing their strategy next year on this conversation. But because my family knows how it feels to both be shut out and to "win the lottery", I really hope that whatever happens next year leads to the most families getting their highest choices, and schools getting the most families that really really wanted that school. And I wish tons of luck to those algorithm-designers, because I sure as heck don't know how to do that hard work!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No offense, but nothing you've said so far makes any sense at all. You really think your musings are better than a Nobel Prize-winning economist's algorithm?

This. The system worked perfectly, you just lost. Try again next year.

But the thing is, with education in general, nobody should "lose." It's a broken system and the lottery is simply trying to equalize a broken system. Makes no sense to me...

Obviously. But right now supply is higher than demand. The lottery is an allocation system. It works well, but it doesn't in and of itself create more supply. As a pp noted, however, it may do so indirectly by turning spots that may have otherwise been more acceptable into potential options, thereby growing supply. Your proposed changes do nothing but make the system more complicated than necessary.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No offense, but nothing you've said so far makes any sense at all. You really think your musings are better than a Nobel Prize-winning economist's algorithm?

This. The system worked perfectly, you just lost. Try again next year.

But the thing is, with education in general, nobody should "lose." It's a broken system and the lottery is simply trying to equalize a broken system. Makes no sense to me...

Obviously. But right now supply is higher than demand. The lottery is an allocation system. It works well, but it doesn't in and of itself create more supply. As a pp noted, however, it may do so indirectly by turning spots that may have otherwise been more acceptable into potential options, thereby growing supply. Your proposed changes do nothing but make the system more complicated than necessary.

I'm the person proposing changes, but I'm not the PP you're responding to here. Please remember there are a lot of people weighing in on these conversations.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No offense, but nothing you've said so far makes any sense at all. You really think your musings are better than a Nobel Prize-winning economist's algorithm?

This. The system worked perfectly, you just lost. Try again next year.

But the thing is, with education in general, nobody should "lose." It's a broken system and the lottery is simply trying to equalize a broken system. Makes no sense to me...

Obviously. But right now supply is higher than demand. The lottery is an allocation system. It works well, but it doesn't in and of itself create more supply. As a pp noted, however, it may do so indirectly by turning spots that may have otherwise been more acceptable into potential options, thereby growing supply. Your proposed changes do nothing but make the system more complicated than necessary.

I'm the person proposing changes, but I'm not the PP you're responding to here. Please remember there are a lot of people weighing in on these conversations.

My comments still apply to you. You are do caught up in your own situation that you fail to properly analyze the situation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I just don't see how it would work fairly pp (and I'm no statistician either.) What you'd be introducing under the "individual lotteries" scenario would be an element whereby your chances of admittance would possibly be weighted by your ranking of the school. So, you'd be introducing a way "to game" the system -- a preference would be placed on how YOU ranked the school.

By making something even slightly "gameable" it unfairly weights the process in favor of the people who have the capacity to figure it out (or pay someone to do it for them.)

The way the lottery worked last year was at least fair. It was entirely random, you were randomly awarded or randomly screwed, but it was random. Yes, someone who ranked the school #6 that you ranked #1 got into it and you got waitlisted, but that's because he got lucky and you didn't. He didn't get into his 1-5 because other people were luckier than him, and he's luckier than you. And this is the only way to truly keep it "fair."

Otherwise, I can guarantee a pop-up industry of consultants charging $500 for rankings overnight.

I guess I'm just not "strategic" enough PP. Because the order of my rankings of schools already would have mattered this past year (get in to #3 and you're off the waitlist for #4-12), I would have the exact same list whether the computer searched for #1 rankings first or not. So I still don't understand how adding a measure where the computer considers #1 rankings for each school first, then #2, etc, and then reconciles all the "individual lotteries" with the overall rankings of each applicant and what schools they got into to get a final matched list... I don't see how that change changes anything about the order I put my schools in. They wanted "true order" this past year, and I would have probably done a combo of fantasy schools in the top, good and acceptable schools in my middle choices, and "safety schools" (which we all found out were not so safe this year) last. So not a "true list" since I could fill up my list with 12 HRCS and HRDCPS.

I don't see how weighting the selections by how parents ranked the schools (as well as other factors and also random lottery numbers within groups) changes how people choose to rank their schools. You do see a difference, and that's fine, I just don't understand the difference you're trying to point out. In the end, as you or another PP pointed out, this is just a discussion anyway, I don't have any reason to believe that Common Lottery staff are here basing their strategy next year on this conversation. But because my family knows how it feels to both be shut out and to "win the lottery", I really hope that whatever happens next year leads to the most families getting their highest choices, and schools getting the most families that really really wanted that school. And I wish tons of luck to those algorithm-designers, because I sure as heck don't know how to do that hard work!

So - this is important, even if it is "just a conversation." Because the impression you (and I think many others on the listserv) are left with is that there's a more equitable way to do this. Some way to please more people.

And, I'm also assuming you're a fairly intelligent individual, but even you are still missing how it can be gamed under your scenario.

So, I want to try and explain: We can be confident that there are many people that all want the same 5-6 "dream schools" and so they're all ranking them all #1-6. (I'd be interested to see how many people ranked the same three schools in their top 3 - I bet it was a big percentage!) So, you know competition is going to be tight to get in to your dream school - we'll use the example of MV - and you're hoping you actually win the lottery against the other 150 people who ranked it #1 for PS3, so you also put it number one. BUT, you know if you have crap draws repeatedly and you find yourself near the back of the pack, even the seats at schools you ranked 9-12 may be gone by the time they get around to you.

So, you hedge your bet: there's another school you actually feel borderline about, in the "rank by order of preference" guide you would normally put it number 8, but you also know, based on the data, that there were a lot less people on the wait list there than at MV. So, you're more confident that perhaps not everyone will be placing it in their top 3. In this case, since the algorithm you describe considers rankings, you actually increase your chances of a seat substantially by ranking the school you would have ranked #8, #2 instead, because many fewer families ranked it high.

Ergo, you're gaming the system - even if you are walking away from a few schools you'd probably rather be in for the school you put #2, you still increased your chances of a spot.

Making it any more clear?

[Anonymous]

Back to the original question: last year for K we had horrible luck--didn't get in anywhere-WL in the 200-300s at every school. This year we got top ten numbers for first grade at Lee, Mundo Verde, IT and Hearst, and got top 20 at CM, and top 5 at YuYing (we waited on line the night before). DC was offered admission to Lee, MV, IT and Shining Stars and is going to MV. I say this to say that keep your head up! It can work out in the end, even if you have to wait a little!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No offense, but nothing you've said so far makes any sense at all. You really think your musings are better than a Nobel Prize-winning economist's algorithm?

This. The system worked perfectly, you just lost. Try again next year.

But the thing is, with education in general, nobody should "lose." It's a broken system and the lottery is simply trying to equalize a broken system. Makes no sense to me...

Obviously. But right now supply is higher than demand. The lottery is an allocation system. It works well, but it doesn't in and of itself create more supply. As a pp noted, however, it may do so indirectly by turning spots that may have otherwise been more acceptable into potential options, thereby growing supply. Your proposed changes do nothing but make the system more complicated than necessary.

You mean demand is higher than supply?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No offense, but nothing you've said so far makes any sense at all. You really think your musings are better than a Nobel Prize-winning economist's algorithm?

This. The system worked perfectly, you just lost. Try again next year.

But the thing is, with education in general, nobody should "lose." It's a broken system and the lottery is simply trying to equalize a broken system. Makes no sense to me...

Obviously. But right now supply is higher than demand. The lottery is an allocation system. It works well, but it doesn't in and of itself create more supply. As a pp noted, however, it may do so indirectly by turning spots that may have otherwise been more acceptable into potential options, thereby growing supply. Your proposed changes do nothing but make the system more complicated than necessary.

I'm the person proposing changes, but I'm not the PP you're responding to here. Please remember there are a lot of people weighing in on these conversations.

My comments still apply to you. You are do caught up in your own situation that you fail to properly analyze the situation.

Interesting... Please, do tell, what is "my own situation" that you think I'm so caught up in?