Reply to Fairness of Common Lottery?

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Reply to "Fairness of Common Lottery?"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]
Expanding on PP's post, once you have a spot at some school, you're in a better position to shoot for the moon in subsequent years.  So, the first year you list Hardy first, because almost everyone gets in, even though you really prefer Latin.

Once you've secured your 6th grade spot at Hardy, you start lotterying for Latin every year.  Now you can list Latin first every year and have a much better chance of getting in than families who have to hedge their bets because they can't afford to be shut out.  The net result is that it takes you two or more years to finally get into Latin, the school you really wanted in the first place.

Furthermore, because risk-averse people like you did not list their true preference for Latin for 6th grade, many of those spots went to risk takers with other options, and many them opted for Deal or went private.  As a result, some of those secretly-coveted Latin spots went to kids on the wait list, one or more of whom might actually have preferred Hardy to Latin, because, say, they want to attend Wilson, but drew a bad number in the lottery and got wait listed at both Hardy and Latin.

In short, because you kept your preference for Latin secret, you're at Hardy trying to get into Latin and someone else is at Latin trying to get into Hardy, and it will take you both two or more years to land at your preferred school, if ever.  The result is a terrible misallocation of very scarce resources.

The only way to avoid this problem is not to penalize applicants for revealing their true preferences the first time around.

[/quote]

Excellent analysis. The salient point is that the proposed alternatives penalize applicants for revealing their true preference.

I'll add that the scenario the poster outlines -- "you're at Hardy trying to get into Latin and someone else is at Latin trying to get into Hardy" -- is not some theoretical outcome. It used to happen [b]all the time[/b] before the common lottery.  It even had a name -- the "September Shuffle" -- as schools would call kids off their waitlist late into September, which would open up spots at other schools, who would call kids off of their waitlist, and the cycle repeats. The whole system would roil and churn until count day. Ever wonder why DCPS waits until mid-October to count their students?  With the common lottery we've gained essentially a month of instruction.[/quote]

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