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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]It’s a random drawing. The end. [/quote]

That's not true exactly. Each school has their priorities (in bound, sibling, high risk, staff kids, whatever else they do or don't choose) for example.

But, it's not at all a secret. The algorithm is public and one used by other places with central lotteries.

From My School: (Though, I'm not sure this is exactly how I would describe the lottery if trying to put it in laymans terms)

How does the lottery matching work?
This video explains how the lottery matching works. The My School DC lottery is a computerized program designed to match students with the schools they want most, and maximize the number of students who are matched. The lottery is based on the Nobel Prize-winning work of economist Al Roth of Stanford University.
 
The two most important things to know about the program are:

Students should rank schools in the order they prefer to increase their chances of being matched to their desired school.
Students who apply early get no advantage in the matching process.

The lottery program follows the below process for all schools:*

The program assigns each student a random lottery number and attempts to match each student with their 1st choice first. If the program is unable to match a student at their 1st choice, it will then attempt to match them at their 2nd choice, then their 3rd, and so on in the order listed on the application. However, when it compares two students who have applied to the same school option, the decision is based on two criteria:

(1) The students’ lottery preferences at that school (e.g., sibling preference); and

(2) The students’ randomly assigned lottery number.

The student’s ranking of the schools is critical – it informs the order that the algorithm tries to match students in. However, it is not a factor in whether the student should or will get matched. In other words, the system does not try to fill a school’s seats with students who ranked them highest first. This is why the system is strategy-proof and why students are best served by ranking schools according to their true preference.

After identifying the highest ranked match possible for a student, the algorithm uses the student’s ranking to determine which waitlists to place the student on. Each student is placed on a waitlist at every school they ranked higher than the school at which they are matched. Exception: Siblings who apply to the same schools are placed on a waitlist at any school where one of their siblings is matched regardless if that school is ranked lower on a sibling’s application than where they are matched.

It is possible for a student not to receive a school match in the lottery due to space availability and demand. If a student is not matched to a school, they are placed on the waitlist at every school on their list.

*DCPS selective high schools and programs admit students based on specific criteria. Each of the selective high schools identifies which applicants meet their specific minimum requirements, and then each school determines the order of priority among that group. The lottery program uses the same process described above based upon the student’s ranking, and students will not be matched to more than one school. If a selective high school determines that a student is ineligible to attend, the lottery program will skip this school in the student’s rankings and try to match the student as the next highest ranked school and so forth.

Note: The student’s ranking of their school choices on the My School DC application may include any combination of DCPS schools and public charter schools. However, when the program is comparing two students who have applied to the same DCPS selective high school, the decision is made based on the school’s order of priority for the applicants. [/quote]

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