We live in the Claremont neighborhood, and I definitely give it a thumbs up. Our son is 18 mos old so we obviously don't have direct experience yet with signing him up for kindergarten, but from what I've seen, many of our neighbors send their kids to Claremont Immersion ES. It's definitely a family-friendly neighborhood...we have Halloween parades, an annual chili cook-off where we close off a block and much of the neighborhood comes out, etc. We plan to stay here for a while (and send our son to Claremont)!

Just to clarify - the school districts listed by OP have priority for Claremont.

Please note: they added two kindergarten classes for the 2011-12 school year, so there are 50% more slots than there were for the 2010-2011 school year (when there was a lottery.

So there is no guarantee, but being in one of the four priority areas increases your chances.

From APS website:
Claremont and Key Immersion Elementary Schools
Claremont and Key Elementary Immersion Schools strive to maintain a balance of
approximately 50 percent native Spanish-speaking (or Spanish-dominant) and 50 percent native
English-speaking (or English-dominant) students and base admission in the upper grades on staff
analysis of language proficiency and balance as well as space availability. The application of
such a policy does not exclude students whose first or dominant language may be other than
English or Spanish (e.g., Chinese, Urdu, and Arabic). Such students are included in the English
speaking category.
Students in the preschool programs located at Claremont or Key have the option to remain at
Claremont or Key without having to enter the kindergarten level lottery. Students residing in
Neighborhood (Key/Science Focus) for Key or the Cluster (Abingdon/Hoffman-Boston
/Oakridge) for Claremont are guaranteed admission to that school. Admission to Claremont and
Key Elementary Immersion Schools will be offered to others in the following order:
? Siblings of older students who will be concurrently attending Claremont or Key
? In the case of Key, students from its team (Jamestown and Taylor) schools
? Students who live within Claremont and Key’s identified boundaries
? Students from one school’s waiting list if space is available in the other school

Guarantee? Can't have that.

Application for the immersion lotteries is based on address, and you got good info on the addresses. If the number of applicants remains where it is, you pretty much have a guarantee. If the number of applicants does not, then over time, that "guarantee" will go away. Arlington can change rules, and has done so in the past.

When I researched this awhile ago, the following schools had Claremont as their immersion option:
South Arlington: Abingdon, Barcroft, Carlin Springs, Hoffman-Boston, Oakridge, Randolph
North Arlington: Ashlawn, McKinley, Nottingham, and Tuckahoe.
I don't know which are guaranteed Claremont, though. (The houses which fed into Claremont on the MLS listings appeared to be South of Columbia Pike, North of Walter Reed and West of 4 Mile Run.) There's some talk about really beefing up language programs at Wakefield for former immersion kids at some point; I'd want to know what the long-term plan was for languages for kids at immersion elementaries.

Price will probably be a deciding factor - you can generally buy more house in South Arlington, though certain areas feeding into Oakridge seem to command a premium over other S. Arl neighborhoods.

Look in the 22202 zip code - it's a wonderful neighborhood and extremely convenient to Metro, parks, shopping etc. Tucked between Route 1, 395, Glebe Rd and the Pentagon - lots of nice SFHs (and more coming on the market this spring). Great community. We've lived here for nearly a decade. Lots of kids here go to Claremont and the families at Oakridge are very happy there, too.

I live in Columbia Forest and like it a lot. Family-friendly, tons of kids and affordable by Arlington standards. We're zoned for Abington, but it seems that most of the elementary-aged kids on my block go to Claremont.

The Claremont neighborhood is really nice. Added benefit that your child can walk to school. Nice families, lots of kids.

If we want our child to have guaranteed admission into Claremont's immersion program (Arlington Public Schools), are there some good/family-friendly neighborhoods we should start looking in? My understanding is that students in the Oakridge, Abington, and Hoffman-Boston boundaries are all guaranteed admission. How do we even start the search and is there anything we should be looking out for (good or bad)?