Waitlist data August update

[Anonymous]

I total guess think its probably very roughly about 50 seats and that is very roughly somewhat consistent with 25 initial and 25 waitlist seats in earlier years.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

How do you know this? You don’t know that it’s 25-30 new OOB students. The reply from MSDC really doesn’t actually suggest anything about how many seats were available at hardy for 6 this year. For all we know it could be that Hardy had 50-75 OOB which is why they had to make so many waitlist offers. Can’t speculate about buy-in for MacArthur until we know how many seats were actually available.

[Anonymous]

Is anyone else seeing PK4 wait list movement at multiple schools today?

[Anonymous]

that makes sense. office staff is probably back now, and they want the enrollments done before school starts.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Is anyone else seeing PK4 wait list movement at multiple schools today?

Which ones? I’ve been looking for Kindergarten movement but nothing yet.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is anyone else seeing PK4 wait list movement at multiple schools today?

Which ones? I’ve been looking for Kindergarten movement but nothing yet.

Everything seems to be so grade dependent! They're like different worlds wrt offers...

(our list is all PK4s in Georgetown and WOTP ...up 1-3 spots at 5 different schools today. The most single-day movement since lottery day!)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is anyone else seeing PK4 wait list movement at multiple schools today?

Which ones? I’ve been looking for Kindergarten movement but nothing yet.

Everything seems to be so grade dependent! They're like different worlds wrt offers...

(our list is all PK4s in Georgetown and WOTP ...up 1-3 spots at 5 different schools today. The most single-day movement since lottery day!)

Got it! I suppose for kindergarten movement in DCPS, they might wait until school starts to get a sense of who shows up from within the boundary before making OOB offers.

[Anonymous]

yes middle school moves in july more than elementary school. but be prepared that some lists dont move at all.

[Anonymous]

Now it's up to single digits at one of our top PK4 choices...up 5 spots since the end of last week! Statistically, they've made more offers than our original wait list number in exactly 50% of the past four years, and of the six years, etc ...primed for max crazy-making!

Trying to mentally prepare for it get to #1 or 2 and then just...stop [crying emoji x infinity]

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Now it's up to single digits at one of our top PK4 choices...up 5 spots since the end of last week! Statistically, they've made more offers than our original wait list number in exactly 50% of the past four years, and of the six years, etc ...primed for max crazy-making!

Trying to mentally prepare for it get to #1 or 2 and then just...stop [crying emoji x infinity]

This time of year I often think about how someone always ends up at #1! Heartbreaker.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Now it's up to single digits at one of our top PK4 choices...up 5 spots since the end of last week! Statistically, they've made more offers than our original wait list number in exactly 50% of the past four years, and of the six years, etc ...primed for max crazy-making!

Trying to mentally prepare for it get to #1 or 2 and then just...stop [crying emoji x infinity]

This is where we are.. so close and checking the list 10x/day as if that's going to help my anxiety 😫

[Anonymous]

My other unanswerable question right now: how much of the daily churn at the moment is just kids slightly ahead of mine on the wait list for school X getting an offer off the wait lists at schools Y or Z, accepting those offers, and then disappearing from wait list X as a result?

In other words: it seems at least plausible that, despite my kid apparently inching up in the rankings at our top choices almost daily, there could well be no actual admissions movement at those schools at all.

(Does anyone ever contact schools directly for guidance on this sort of thing and get it, or is that a major faux pas? I have zero idea whether to mentally prepare my kid for the fact that the school they're returning to in less than a week might actually be their school for just a few days...or just continue to say nothing and shock the hell out of them with no advance warning if we do magically get an offer from one of the half dozen schools that has us in peak wait list purgatory atm)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My other unanswerable question right now: how much of the daily churn at the moment is just kids slightly ahead of mine on the wait list for school X getting an offer off the wait lists at schools Y or Z, accepting those offers, and then disappearing from wait list X as a result?

In other words: it seems at least plausible that, despite my kid apparently inching up in the rankings at our top choices almost daily, there could well be no actual admissions movement at those schools at all.

(Does anyone ever contact schools directly for guidance on this sort of thing and get it, or is that a major faux pas? I have zero idea whether to mentally prepare my kid for the fact that the school they're returning to in less than a week might actually be their school for just a few days...or just continue to say nothing and shock the hell out of them with no advance warning if we do magically get an offer from one of the half dozen schools that has us in peak wait list purgatory atm)

It's fine to contact the school. Not a big deal. You're just expressing your enthusiasm for it, it's unlikely to surprise or offend them.

People can reorder their list to avoid getting off waitlists if they want to stay on.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My other unanswerable question right now: how much of the daily churn at the moment is just kids slightly ahead of mine on the wait list for school X getting an offer off the wait lists at schools Y or Z, accepting those offers, and then disappearing from wait list X as a result?

In other words: it seems at least plausible that, despite my kid apparently inching up in the rankings at our top choices almost daily, there could well be no actual admissions movement at those schools at all.

(Does anyone ever contact schools directly for guidance on this sort of thing and get it, or is that a major faux pas? I have zero idea whether to mentally prepare my kid for the fact that the school they're returning to in less than a week might actually be their school for just a few days...or just continue to say nothing and shock the hell out of them with no advance warning if we do magically get an offer from one of the half dozen schools that has us in peak wait list purgatory atm)

If you can, just completely forget about it and don't check anymore. Wait until you get a text/call from the school that you have an offer. Then you can discuss it with your kid.

As far as you all know, you are going to the school that your kid is enrolled to attend. Plan for that, adjust when you have an offer.

Speaking as an old mom who once got a late call. My kid came to visit the school and we made the decision together. We did take it. Kids can handle a lot!

[Anonymous]

Thanks to both PP...solid advice all around!