Lottery Consultant?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We worked with a consultant (not EV) and found her helpful. Can you save money and do everything with the info on the internet? Totally. But it takes a lot of time, and there are a million rabbit holes. We were pretty well-informed, but the consultant helped us by talking through our priorities and offering suggestions for schools that met them that we might not otherwise have considered. We were trying to save ourselves some time in the money v. time tradeoff. In the end we got a terrible lottery number, but the consultant had also put a private school on our radar that ended up being a good fit and we're still there now. It wasn't a waste, but you can't expect the consultant to have a magic answer. In the end it is still a lottery.

Can you share this consultant's name/website/contact?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We worked with a consultant (not EV) and found her helpful. Can you save money and do everything with the info on the internet? Totally. But it takes a lot of time, and there are a million rabbit holes. We were pretty well-informed, but the consultant helped us by talking through our priorities and offering suggestions for schools that met them that we might not otherwise have considered. We were trying to save ourselves some time in the money v. time tradeoff. In the end we got a terrible lottery number, but the consultant had also put a private school on our radar that ended up being a good fit and we're still there now. It wasn't a waste, but you can't expect the consultant to have a magic answer. In the end it is still a lottery.

Can you share this consultant's name/website/contact?

Lindsay Ferrer, https://www.leadconsulting.biz/pre-k-lottery-consultations

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We worked with a consultant (not EV) and found her helpful. Can you save money and do everything with the info on the internet? Totally. But it takes a lot of time, and there are a million rabbit holes. We were pretty well-informed, but the consultant helped us by talking through our priorities and offering suggestions for schools that met them that we might not otherwise have considered. We were trying to save ourselves some time in the money v. time tradeoff. In the end we got a terrible lottery number, but the consultant had also put a private school on our radar that ended up being a good fit and we're still there now. It wasn't a waste, but you can't expect the consultant to have a magic answer. In the end it is still a lottery.

Can you share this consultant's name/website/contact?

Lindsay Ferrer, https://www.leadconsulting.biz/pre-k-lottery-consultations

[Giggles hard at how easily DCUM parents are to separate from their money]

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have a prek4 kid on the Hill. Happy to help you here with your list. We consulted with EV a few years ago, not worth the money.

Yes, same experience. Talk with as many other parents as you can. That's what we did when our kids were younger, and now we're the parents of older kids (MS and HS) who share our experiences with parents of younger kids. But remember that our experience - like that of any one family - is very limited, and that kids differ, as do their parents' priorities and situations.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We worked with a consultant (not EV) and found her helpful. Can you save money and do everything with the info on the internet? Totally. But it takes a lot of time, and there are a million rabbit holes. We were pretty well-informed, but the consultant helped us by talking through our priorities and offering suggestions for schools that met them that we might not otherwise have considered. We were trying to save ourselves some time in the money v. time tradeoff. In the end we got a terrible lottery number, but the consultant had also put a private school on our radar that ended up being a good fit and we're still there now. It wasn't a waste, but you can't expect the consultant to have a magic answer. In the end it is still a lottery.

Can you share this consultant's name/website/contact?

Lindsay Ferrer, https://www.leadconsulting.biz/pre-k-lottery-consultations

[Giggles hard at how easily DCUM parents are to separate from their money]

I was side eyeing your comment until I clicked the link.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:From this thread, TR sounds awful:
https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/1108405.page

OP here, is this true that TR is bad? They get great ratings…

[Anonymous]

EWWWW- the fact that people are making money off the DC school lottery being "consultants" makes my skin crawl. The idea of a school lottery is to give EVERY CHILD a fair chance to get into a school that fits their needs. It's not a competition. Ick, ick, ick.

[Anonymous]

Check out Peter Braverman:
https://peterbraverman.com/

[Anonymous]

Ask the PTO reps giving the tour at an open house you go to for the scoop on the lottery — how it works, where other families that apply to their school apply, for their advice, etc. Most are very well informed and happy to help families.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Check out Peter Braverman:
https://peterbraverman.com/

I'm the person who giggled at the other lottery consultant. I looked at this site and this guy seems to focus on private schools all over (at least the East Coast). Consultants for private schools (including boarding schools) makes sense. Consultants for My School DC lottery is stupidity. Anyone dumb enough to pay for the latter deserves to be separated from their money.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We worked with a consultant (not EV) and found her helpful. Can you save money and do everything with the info on the internet? Totally. But it takes a lot of time, and there are a million rabbit holes. We were pretty well-informed, but the consultant helped us by talking through our priorities and offering suggestions for schools that met them that we might not otherwise have considered. We were trying to save ourselves some time in the money v. time tradeoff. In the end we got a terrible lottery number, but the consultant had also put a private school on our radar that ended up being a good fit and we're still there now. It wasn't a waste, but you can't expect the consultant to have a magic answer. In the end it is still a lottery.

Can you share this consultant's name/website/contact?

Lindsay Ferrer, https://www.leadconsulting.biz/pre-k-lottery-consultations

[Giggles hard at how easily DCUM parents are to separate from their money]

I was side eyeing your comment until I clicked the link.

Yup. She's charging for an intro on "DC Lottery Basics". My School DC literally wrote the book, pamphlet and video on the topic...and they are all free! I don't blame her. If entitled people with too much disposable income are too dumb and lazy to know better then goo for Lindsay.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:From this thread, TR sounds awful:
https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/1108405.page

OP here, is this true that TR is bad? They get great ratings…

That's because the bar for ratings is super low. If you control for income and look at the upper grades' test scores, you'll be alarmed.

[Anonymous]

We found it helpful. Yes, could do the research on our own, but it was overwhelming and helpful to talk through our priorities and hear about schools we weren't originally considering. Also helpful to put into context odds of getting into certain schools due to sibling preference, etc., some we decided not to include on our list.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We found it helpful. Yes, could do the research on our own, but it was overwhelming and helpful to talk through our priorities and hear about schools we weren't originally considering. Also helpful to put into context odds of getting into certain schools due to sibling preference, etc., some we decided not to include on our list.

Which the consultant knew because all that data is publicly available!!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We found it helpful. Yes, could do the research on our own, but it was overwhelming and helpful to talk through our priorities and hear about schools we weren't originally considering. Also helpful to put into context odds of getting into certain schools due to sibling preference, etc., some we decided not to include on our list.

Which the consultant knew because all that data is publicly available!!!

That's great, but honestly, we again were overwhelmed with all the data and where to look. So to have someone break it down for us in a quick session was worth it and we were able to quickly put our list together right after the meeting. We didn't know about DCUM back then either or perhaps we'd have been more in the know if we spent all our time reading threads on the forum?