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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I posted earlier about open houses and how I did not find them useful. I thought talking to parents and researching the school far more useful than an Open House. Miracles happen. I got my kids in our number one choice school. However, I think it's less wise to plan 17 open house visits. Maybe go to your top choice. Definitely go to your safety school open houses. Another poster described the difficulty of keeping your emotions in check during the open houses, and I agree with them. It's hard going to a great school and getting all worked up and excited to send your kid there only to find there are maybe 2 spots available.

I think the best place is edfest because you can talk to the principle, get the literature, ask your questions, and move on. Drive past the school to see if it looks okay. But sometimes you will go to the open houses, emotionally invest in the school by taking a day off from work, see the happy little kids there, only to find out that your little one doesn't have a chance. That is hard. Go to edfest instead. [/quote]

I agree about open houses. The three that I've been to turned me off so much that I briefly considered home schooling. But everyone is different.

Definitely check out the neighborhood school, even if you think it's some place you'd never consider. A lot of people are surprised. Talk to parents, who are available to share their experiences at nearly every school. I also agree with ranking in order of your true preference. [b]But if you need to get into a school for financial reasons, consider ranking your neighborhood school a little bit higher than the bottom of the list. DCPS wants to put neighborhood families in neighborhood schools, so make it 3 or 4 to ensure that you're in and not on a wait list behind 40 siblings. [/b][/quote]

A little bit of an exaggeration. Only a few schools have that many siblings on waitlists for PK3.[/quote]

I'm pretty sure this advice is wrong; your position on the school's wait list in relation to others is independent of where you ranked the school compared to others' rankings. For example, if person A ranks their neighborhood school at #1 and person B ranks the same school (also with inbound preference) as # 12, person B will still be above person A on the waitlist it that person's application lottery number is higher than person A's. [/quote]

But if everyone is ranking the school at #12 and person B's number is lower, then they're shut out completely.

[b]We were the second-to-last on the accepted list at our neighborhood school after getting a five-digit lottery number.  It's just a theory, but I don't think we would have made it in if we'd ranked it at #12 instead of #4. [/b] That really was our true preference, however, because I'd done the commute calculations and there were only three other schools that seemed worth going out of the way at rush hour.

As for siblings taking slots, people on this forum forget that there are families at these less-than-desirable schools who prefer their neighborhood option and send multiple kids there.  You can make assumptions about the availability of seats because "everyone knows it's a terrible school" but you might also find yourself shut out and scraping the bottom of the barrel in round 2.  [/quote]

THIS ADVICE IS WRONG!!!!!

In the common lottery, you will be assigned an overall number.  Your school will then be assigned based on your overall number and your preferences.  Schools have no idea whether you ranked them 1 or 12.

Let's take future PK3 kids, Adam and Betty.

Adam gets an overall number of 190.  Betty gets an overall number of 49.

Adam's school rankings are

1. SWW
2. Brent - Inbound preference
3. Miner

Betty's school rankings are

1. Yu Ying
2. Mundo Verde
3. SWS.

Because Betty has a better overall number than Adam, they will try to fill her spots first.

The computer will check Yu Ying for spots first.  Let's say there are none.  So it will move to her second spot.  The computer will then check for spots at Mundo Verde.  Let's say there are none, so it will move on to her third choice.  When it checks her third choice, let's pretend that they find a spot.  So she will be waitlisted for Yu Ying and Mundo Verde, and be matched with SWW.

Adam ranked SWW first, not last, but because he will have a lower overall number, Betty will get a spot before he does.  Finally the computer gets to Adam.  Unfortunately, Betty took the last spot at SWS.  So they will move on to his second choice, Brent.  Brent's PK3 class has no spots for non-siblings, so even though he's inbound, he does not get a spot.  The computer will then go down his choices until they find a spot or run out of choices.  Since Adam did his research, he put Miner as his third choice.  Miner has a great reggio PK program, and there tends to be lots of spots.

FIN[/quote]

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