Reply to Common Lottery Algorithm

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]

You are missing a really key difference between this year and all years prior.  In the past, the IB family with a sibling lost nothing by applying to their IB school and also as many charters as they wanted to.  Really, anyone could apply to any number of charters and not have to know in advance which they were most interested in going to.  And it hasn't been long that you were limited in how many DCPS schools you applied to as well.

This year, each family only has 12 choices in Round 1.  I may be IB and/or have sib preference, but if my 1st child is in a non-immersion school and I want immersion, I may put 3 immersion schools ahead of my IB school or the school my 1st child is in.  Someone else may have my same preference, or no preference, and get a way better random pull position and get in to my IB/sib school before me.  OR, I could get into one of my immersion schools which takes me off the list for my IB if I ranked them ahead.

This year is really, truly different, because it's all linked and families who in the past lost nothing by applying to multiple schools actually have to prioritize, AND if they get into one, they are OUT of running for the others automatically.  No more getting into 3 schools and holding the spots until you decide.

This isn't to say that schools that had no non-sibling spots last year will somehow miraculously have sib spots this year.  It's just to say that the process is different, and when people need to rank their choices and automatically get dropped from lower choices if they get into one, PLUS it all being one system so so much less room for gaming the system... this all means it'll be the first year that we have a much more real understanding of demand for each school and probably have more of a chance at the ones we want the most, whichever school it is.

All that said, the odds for the most popular schools still suck, so it'll still be a rough road for many, unfortunately.[/quote]

I think that's a fair point- this year is truly different.  But I really doubt that there will be a significant number of people from west of Rock Creek who will drop their neighborhood school in favor of a charter that is a 20-30 minute drive.  There will be some, absolutely.  But my SWAG is that you are talking 5 or so per school, based on my admittedly non-scientific review of the parents from my kid's immersion charter.  Not enough to swing those lists all that much.  My impression is that people move to those neighborhoods specifically for those schools, and are incredibly disappointed if they don't get in for PK4, and just wait it out until they get automatic admittance for K.  Again, I don't really have an interest here other than academic- I think it's an interesting process that this city is going through.  [/quote]

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