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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Ok, hoping everyone know gets why (or at least that) your chances in a combined lottery and your chances in an individual lottery are the same.

But there is also a real benefit of the common lottery algorithm that means that people are more likely to get into the schools they desire. When it was individual lotteries, you might have luck in one lottery, and not in another, and therefore get into, say, Hearst, and have a terrible number at Eaton, when really Eaton was your preferred choice. Someone else might have had the opposite happen. It was frustrating because you might have had some luck, but not necessarily with the right schools. This resulted in, say, people going to language immersion schools because they had luck of the draw there when really they would have preferred expeditionary learning or someone else, but they had no luck in their preferred schools. It was frustrating for families, but also for the schools themselves, which is why you see Yu Ying letting people line up to get a good spot on the waitlist.

In the new lottery, with a single number, the effect is that when your number is drawn, they go through your schools from #1 to #12 and see if there is room. If there isn't, you're waitlisted; if there is, then you get in and you are dropped from consideration for schools that you ranked as less desirable. (In truth, the algorithm is much more complicated than this, but this is how it plays out in the end.)

So in the common lottery example--which, again, your odds of getting in are the same as individual lotteries--if you rank Eaton #1 and Hearst #2, with an early draw then you get into Eaton and not Hearst, so you get your preference. If someone else has an early draw and has ranked them the opposite way, then they get into Hearst and not Eaton. You are also placed on waitlists of better-ranked schools in the order of your lottery # (assuming no preferences). That means that you can "trade up"--so say Eaton is actually #2, and miracle of all miracles you get into #1 Janney over the summer, then you trade up but let someone else who wants to go to Eaton trade up. It then cascades all the way through the system.

It really is the best way of helping match people with their preferred schools, all with the benefit of giving people the same odds as they would have with individual lotteries. Now, don't get me wrong, it sucks to get a bad draw. It also sucked when that happened with lots of individual lotteries. I wouldn't have gotten in anywhere this year given my awful lottery draw if I hadn't had an IB preference at an unpopular school.

This is why people say the problem is not the lottery algorithm--to the contrary, that's great at matching people with preferred schools--the problem is that there are not enough good seats to meet the demand. No algorithm can change that.

[/quote]

AMEN.  This reminds me of that line in the famed "algorithm" thread.  DROPS MIKE.

Could everyone please just cut and paste this to their desk top?  And MYSchoolDC - umm.  Maybe try and find a way to explain this better to the 95% of people who understandably remain confused.  [/quote]

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