Lottery question: what constitutes a safe pick?
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Anonymous
| Our in-bounds school is not a good fit, so I want to lottery DD for PK3. I have already identified the good schools within a reasonable commute. But I need to add a few schools at which our chances are solid. What parameters should I use to identify those schools? Any school that got through its waitlist for the current year? |
Anonymous
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What is your inbounds school? Have you actually checked it out? If you are talking about PK3/PK4/K, often schools that aren't acceptable in the upper grades are fine then.
In terms of other schools, I'd check out Appletree Columbia Heights and Bridges--Bridges went through its entire waitlist for PK3 and Pk4 this year, including people who applied after round 2. |
Anonymous
We are exactly on the same boat. I want to place 3 or 4 schools that are "safe". Is there a waitlist number that is safe? Say, below 100? I see that 2Rivers waitlisted 500, so... i guess, not safe at all! |
Anonymous
0 on the waitlist is the only absolutely safe waitlist number. Schools vary greatly by how far they go into their waitlists. Bridges and Appletree are unusual in going through all or most of their waitlists. I think there are about 7-8 schools I am really interested in, and I will fill the remaining 4-5 slots by seeing which less popular schools near us seem to have good early ed programs. |
Anonymous
OP here-- inbounds school is going through a leadership transition and some issues with the preschool teachers, so it's hard to say how it will be a year from now. I'd like to make sure we have another solid option, just in case. |
Anonymous
If a school was 0 last year, will it be close to 0 again? Or should I plan even more conservatively? |
Anonymous
Yes, I would expect it would be similar from year to year. How many safety schools you want to include depends on how many schools you're really interested in and how you feel about continuing to pay for daycare/preschool. |
Anonymous
I don't know how you can get more conservative than 0, unless you are putting several schools with 0 on the waitlist. |
Anonymous
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It's very hard to gauge year over year lottery picks since classes expand and contract. I tried to do this last year and 'game' the system by studying past lottery numbers- how many OOB kids a school took the previous year, etc. we got locked out most everywhere regardless. Sometimes schools go through a whole waitlist of kids one year because they added classes and the following year not at all.
My two cents- there are no safe bets in the lottery, just hope for the best! |
Anonymous
Your chances are likely going to be solid at schools that match the profile of your not acceptable IB school, for better or worse. That said, there are schools that go through a lot of their lists. We are at Cooke, which accepted all IB kids and a bunch of OOB kids in the first round and then had some drop out and called people from the list. I know that Tubman and Bruce Monroe also accepted kids off the list. I believe that Raymond had seats in play during the second lottery. I don't know the stats on Garrison or Marie Reed this year. We were offered an OOB PK3 seat in the fall of 2013 at Reed and a PK4 seat at Garrison this year, which we declined. AppleTree is a good safety if you are IB for a school that does not have a PK3 program. Bridges is supposedly moving next year, so while it's a solid safety, you will need to weigh both commutes (now and later) into your decisionmaking. Shining Stars, which hasn't been talked about recently, went through its waitlist last year, for reasons that are probably pretty well documented on this site. My advice is to visit every school that is geographically workable for you and make your decisions about what works for your daughter based on that list, unless your lives are flexible enough to investigate options pretty far afield. |
Anonymous
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New schools are a safer bet.
Sela is offering PK3 for the first time next year. Schools that had open seats at the end of the lottery (not just 0 waitlist but actual open seats). Appletree Oklahoma Ave seems like a good choice. If you have a girl, Excel Academy...but with the current out-of-DC enrollment scandal I'd investigate thoroughly. |
Anonymous
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Of course, you're IB school is your best safety pick because it compounds your chances by giving you preference to get in. If you don't like it but want to hedge your bets, then place it last on your list. Won't do any harm there.
And please do take a serious look. I'm speaking from experience saying that going hearsay is very flawed when it comes to school. That always lags a couple of years behind, both ways, so-so schools getting better and an occasional good school turning sour. Also, teachers turn over all the time, and so do principals. Changes on both ends can make a world of difference, especially at the early childhood level, where kids spend so much time in one and the same classroom. |
Anonymous
| Look for schools that might be expanding. It is hard to figure out sometimes because those decisions might be made late -for example, Bridges ended up expanding PS3/PS4 and that is how we got in. |
Anonymous
I generally agree with this except that if you truly don't like it, please don't put it on your list. It's a waste of your time because you'll only decline in the end and there may be families who actually do like the school that you'll squeeze out. |
Anonymous
| Hard to say, safe schools like Seaton or Bethune were used a lot last year and I bet will now have possible wait lists this year. |