It seems there is relative complexity in the DCC process for families -- not that it is overwhelmingly complex on its face, but just not as deterministic as might provide clarity about the "best" approach to choice rankings for one's child. Matched with the imbalance of overcrowding and uncertainty of a lottery, I'd guess that there are, now, many cases where child A got into school X and child B got into school Y, when A wanted Y more and B wanted X more.

If that is the case, wouldn't it make sense for them to facilitate a blinded exchange, where students/families anonymously post "X for Y" and match with another posting "Y for X"? Straight up swaps wouldn't change the enrollment numbers.

Home school Einstein. Got first choice Blair. No siblings.

For those kids who got their first and second choice, any chance that kid had a sibling preference?

Anonymous wrote:YES. Got third choice. Was planning to come here and post that it DOES happen that you get third choice, as the prevailing wisdom here is that you'll definitely get your first or second choice. NOT TRUE.

You will get them if they’re your home school

I'm the 8:55am poster. Divorced parents, one home school is Northwood, the other home school is Einstein. Ranked Blair, Einstein, Kennedy and got Kennedy.

We ranked Blair, Wheaton, everybody else and got Wheaton. If I had known that some people were not getting their second choice, I would have put Wheaton as first, since I knew there was no chance of Blair. My son is hearing-impaired and wanted to take ASL at the only school in the DCC that has ASL, which is Blair.

Anonymous wrote:YES. Got third choice. Was planning to come here and post that it DOES happen that you get third choice, as the prevailing wisdom here is that you'll definitely get your first or second choice. NOT TRUE.

Same thing happened to us.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We ranked Blair/Wheaton/Northwood and got Northwood.

Our home school is Einstein

We ranked Wheaton and Einstein (base school), and got Wheaton.

Anonymous wrote:We ranked Blair/Wheaton/Northwood and got Northwood.

Our home school is Einstein

Anonymous wrote:For those who got third choice, was that your base school?

This is the critical question. I'm very curious about how it's going for folks, as I'll be doing this process next year, but it's really only helpful if folks can identify their base school. Each of these schools has thousands of kids, so no real worry about identifying yourself as someone who posts in these parts.

For those who got third choice, was that your base school?

We ranked Blair/Wheaton/Northwood and got Northwood.

Curious if those who didn't get first or second choices had Blair and Einstein as those top choices.

YES. Got third choice. Was planning to come here and post that it DOES happen that you get third choice, as the prevailing wisdom here is that you'll definitely get your first or second choice. NOT TRUE.

Anyone else not get their first or second choice?