Waitlist data August update

[Anonymous]

people might list it because its one of the best public options in dc and then turn it down because they dont live nearby and not everyone wants to commute 40 minutes just for middle school. that is not at all a reflection on the quality of the school. but the yield on those waitlist offers is not 100%

[Anonymous]

I stand corrected on Hardy - I wrote MSDC and this was there response:


Hello,
Yes, the numbers, albeit larger than usual, are correct. They offered fewer seats in the lottery this year and this may have been why they then had to make more offers than usual.

Let us know if you need further assistance or call the My School DC Hotline at 202-888-6336, from Monday to Friday, 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.

Best,
Michele DeSando
MSDC Parent Response Manager
202-888-6336
She / Ella

[Anonymous]

*their

[Anonymous]

I think the main way that MacArthur as a feed might impact whether or not families take a spot at Hardy is for families who live on the east side. If you live on CH and get a spot at Hardy, it no longer guarantees you a spot at J-R. Well C-H has a couple decent MSs now. And if you want MacArthur, you can almost certainly lottery in there for 9th. So why commute to Hardy for 3 years?

I suspect a lot of people who might have taken those Hardy spots 4 or 5 years ago now decide to attend their IB of S-H or E-H, since Hardy no longer gets them into a HS they find to be a significant upgrade over Eastern.

[Anonymous]

i think thats right. i also think you may have some IB families who applied to K-12 privates in 5th last year, got in, and then took the spots. plus its a weird year in DC.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think the main way that MacArthur as a feed might impact whether or not families take a spot at Hardy is for families who live on the east side. If you live on CH and get a spot at Hardy, it no longer guarantees you a spot at J-R. Well C-H has a couple decent MSs now. And if you want MacArthur, you can almost certainly lottery in there for 9th. So why commute to Hardy for 3 years?

I suspect a lot of people who might have taken those Hardy spots 4 or 5 years ago now decide to attend their IB of S-H or E-H, since Hardy no longer gets them into a HS they find to be a significant upgrade over Eastern.

This makes a lot of sense.

[Anonymous]

This is so wild.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I stand corrected on Hardy - I wrote MSDC and this was there response:


Hello,
Yes, the numbers, albeit larger than usual, are correct. They offered fewer seats in the lottery this year and this may have been why they then had to make more offers than usual.

Let us know if you need further assistance or call the My School DC Hotline at 202-888-6336, from Monday to Friday, 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.

Best,
Michele DeSando
MSDC Parent Response Manager
202-888-6336
She / Ella

This is the explanation. Last year they offered 25 6th grade seats and this year only 2. Looks like they were expecting more inbound families to attend this year (not sure why with loss of JR feed) and they had the same amount of inbound actually enroll as last year.

It’s reasonable to believe it took them ~100 offers to fill the remaining ~23 seats after June. Late in the summer waitlists moves fast and some people are not ready to pivot that quickly or able to respond quickly to an offer that is good for a week or less.

If they had offered the same 25 seats this year I bet they would have had similar august offer numbers as last year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I stand corrected on Hardy - I wrote MSDC and this was there response:


Hello,
Yes, the numbers, albeit larger than usual, are correct. They offered fewer seats in the lottery this year and this may have been why they then had to make more offers than usual.

Let us know if you need further assistance or call the My School DC Hotline at 202-888-6336, from Monday to Friday, 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.

Best,
Michele DeSando
MSDC Parent Response Manager
202-888-6336
She / Ella

This is the explanation. Last year they offered 25 6th grade seats and this year only 2. Looks like they were expecting more inbound families to attend this year (not sure why with loss of JR feed) and they had the same amount of inbound actually enroll as last year.

It’s reasonable to believe it took them ~100 offers to fill the remaining ~23 seats after June. Late in the summer waitlists moves fast and some people are not ready to pivot that quickly or able to respond quickly to an offer that is good for a week or less.

If they had offered the same 25 seats this year I bet they would have had similar august offer numbers as last year.

Families enrolling 6th grade last year didn't have the option of the J-R feed either. I don't think it matters much one way or the other, but it's just not a difference from last year.

From the school's perspective, it's smart to take kids off the list later rather than sooner. Otherwise, the risk is ending up with more kids than you intended (which is what happened the last few years).

Why does it matter how many offers they make if they end up with the right enrollment?

[Anonymous]

it doesnt. but some people rely on the lottery for middle school and lots of seats at hardy is a big change from several years ago.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:it doesnt. but some people rely on the lottery for middle school and lots of seats at hardy is a big change from several years ago.

It's the same number of seats. It's just this year they were offered off the waitlist and last year they were awarded in the lottery.

I suspect the reason they offered fewer seats in the lottery this year is because they were anticipating more IB attrition last year than they got, and wound up overenrolled. So this year they offered fewer lottery seats so that they could wait until they knew their IB enrollment, and then begin making offers to people on the waitlist.

There are a lot of schools who manage the lottery/waitlists this way some years. DCPS will get mad if you do it every year, and start insisting you offer more lottery seats. But they'll give you some leeway if you can show that you exceeded certain enrollment benchmarks the previous year. Figuring out how many lottery seats to offer is always a guessing game.

Hardy will still have full enrollment this year with very good IB buy in, just like last year. The 6th grade class will have about 25-30 new OOB students, just like last year, but many of them will have arrived at the school via a waitlist offer instead of a lottery match. That's truly the only difference.

[Anonymous]

It takes 100 waitlist offers to fill 25-30 seats? If so, that is also interesting.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It takes 100 waitlist offers to fill 25-30 seats? If so, that is also interesting.

This. It doesn’t take 100 offers to fill 25 seats. More families are turning down offers and why the waitlist is so deep.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It takes 100 waitlist offers to fill 25-30 seats? If so, that is also interesting.

This. It doesn’t take 100 offers to fill 25 seats. More families are turning down offers and why the waitlist is so deep.

How do you know that Hardy only offered ~25 lottery seats? The data doesn’t indicate how many lottery seats are actually available after Hardy got their IB enrollment numbers. For all we know, Hardy needed to fill 50-75 seats from the waitlist, right?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It takes 100 waitlist offers to fill 25-30 seats? If so, that is also interesting.

This. It doesn’t take 100 offers to fill 25 seats. More families are turning down offers and why the waitlist is so deep.

How do you know that Hardy only offered ~25 lottery seats? The data doesn’t indicate how many lottery seats are actually available after Hardy got their IB enrollment numbers. For all we know, Hardy needed to fill 50-75 seats from the waitlist, right?

Because the MSDC response above suggests otherwise. You could call the school and ask.