Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Just curious, why do you care? It's been established that it doesn't change the fact that each parent needs to pay careful attention to the order they rank the schools. What changes whether you are right or the PP is right?

For an individual family, the best strategy for ordering your picks changes upon which algorithm is being used.

There are two competing ideas being proposed here: 1. that the order of your ranking affects the weight given to your pick; and 2. that the order of your rankings does not affect the weight given to your pick. For brevity, I will refer to #1 as the "incorrect" idea and #2 as the "correct" idea.

Under the correct idea, there is no advantage in doing anything other than ranking your picks in the order of your actual preference. The only time you should even consider your odds of getting into a school is if there are more than 12 schools that you would consider going to, in which case you have to consider whether including a school that you have a near-zero chance of getting into means leaving off a 13th school that you would attend if you got into it.

Under the incorrect idea, you have an edge getting into your highest ranked school. If you use that pick for a school where you have zero chance of getting in, you have wasted that edge. The optimal strategy is to use that edge where it is most likely to help you, which is a school where you are likely to get in with the edge and unlikely to get in without it. It doesn't matter if that is in fact your number one choice. This strategy involves knowing something about your relative chances of getting into each school, which you can derive from looking at last year's results. It also involves knowing something about the size of the edge. Since the edge doesn't exist, that information is impossible to obtain.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hey, how about we just look at the FAQ on the MySchoolDC site!

http://www.myschooldc.org/faq/#common-3

How does the My School DC common lottery work?
Student-school matches are based on the number of spaces at each school; sibling, proximity, and other preferences; and each student’s choices. (Through the My School DC common lottery, the six DCPS specialized high schools admit students based on specific criteria.)

When there are more students than spaces at a school, students who have a preference (such as a sibling preference) will be the first to be offered spaces. Then, random selection decides which other students will be offered spaces.

Students will be matched with no more than one school. My School DC will try to match each student with their 1st choice, then their 2nd choice, and so on through the student’s list.

****

Oh look, preferences matter!

Preferences matter. Preferences are defined: "Students with a preference at a particular school are offered space at that school before students who don’t have a preference. There are four types of preferences: sibling preference (DCPS and charters), proximity preference (DCPS only), in-boundary preference (DCPS PK3 and PK4 only), and Adams-boundary preference (Oyster-Adams Bilingual School only)." Preferences in this sense have nothing to do with rankings on your lottery list.
Reference: http://www.myschooldc.org/getting-started/what-do-all-these-terms-mean/#pref

Which means what? How does this affect how I choose to rank? Do I now not need to put my true #1 school as #1? What does you pointing this out mean? Also, just out of curiosity, where in this 9 pages of comments did anyone say preferences didn't matter? I see people arguing about which things give you a preference and how the process will handle preferences, but where does anyone say preferences don't matter, as you clearly think someone has said?

Anonymous wrote:

I hope someone prints this post out and faxes it/emails it to the lottery and asks them which algorithm is correct, or at least which premise about the importance of ranking is correct. I may bring it with me to the Expo because I'm sure they'll be there.

Does the order in which I rank my choices affect my lottery results?
Yes. You will only be matched to schools you list, and the lottery system works to match students with their 1st choice, then their 2nd choice, and so on through the student’s list. For this reason, it is important that you rank your list of schools in the order you prefer.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Just curious, why do you care? It's been established that it doesn't change the fact that each parent needs to pay careful attention to the order they rank the schools. What changes whether you are right or the PP is right?

For an individual family, the best strategy for ordering your picks changes upon which algorithm is being used.

There are two competing ideas being proposed here: 1. that the order of your ranking affects the weight given to your pick; and 2. that the order of your rankings does not affect the weight given to your pick. For brevity, I will refer to #1 as the "incorrect" idea and #2 as the "correct" idea.

Under the correct idea, there is no advantage in doing anything other than ranking your picks in the order of your actual preference. The only time you should even consider your odds of getting into a school is if there are more than 12 schools that you would consider going to, in which case you have to consider whether including a school that you have a near-zero chance of getting into means leaving off a 13th school that you would attend if you got into it.

Under the incorrect idea, you have an edge getting into your highest ranked school. If you use that pick for a school where you have zero chance of getting in, you have wasted that edge. The optimal strategy is to use that edge where it is most likely to help you, which is a school where you are likely to get in with the edge and unlikely to get in without it. It doesn't matter if that is in fact your number one choice. This strategy involves knowing something about your relative chances of getting into each school, which you can derive from looking at last year's results. It also involves knowing something about the size of the edge. Since the edge doesn't exist, that information is impossible to obtain.

Anonymous wrote:Of course preferences matter, but not during the randomized and separate drawings; they matter in the next step, namely if and when you happen to have gotten two or more "accepted". Only the most preferred (highly ranked) of those will be granted. And that better be your preference!

(Sounds like some shortfall on the part of parents not only when it comes to their lessons in stats and probabilities but also when it comes to reading comprehension. Maybe time to stop complaining about lagging CAS scores in DC schools...)

Anonymous wrote:
Just curious, why do you care? It's been established that it doesn't change the fact that each parent needs to pay careful attention to the order they rank the schools. What changes whether you are right or the PP is right?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hey, how about we just look at the FAQ on the MySchoolDC site!

http://www.myschooldc.org/faq/#common-3

How does the My School DC common lottery work?
Student-school matches are based on the number of spaces at each school; sibling, proximity, and other preferences; and each student’s choices. (Through the My School DC common lottery, the six DCPS specialized high schools admit students based on specific criteria.)

When there are more students than spaces at a school, students who have a preference (such as a sibling preference) will be the first to be offered spaces. Then, random selection decides which other students will be offered spaces.

Students will be matched with no more than one school. My School DC will try to match each student with their 1st choice, then their 2nd choice, and so on through the student’s list.

****

Oh look, preferences matter!

Preferences matter. Preferences are defined: "Students with a preference at a particular school are offered space at that school before students who don’t have a preference. There are four types of preferences: sibling preference (DCPS and charters), proximity preference (DCPS only), in-boundary preference (DCPS PK3 and PK4 only), and Adams-boundary preference (Oyster-Adams Bilingual School only)." Preferences in this sense have nothing to do with rankings on your lottery list.
Reference: http://www.myschooldc.org/getting-started/what-do-all-these-terms-mean/#pref

Anonymous wrote:Hey, how about we just look at the FAQ on the MySchoolDC site!

http://www.myschooldc.org/faq/#common-3

How does the My School DC common lottery work?
Student-school matches are based on the number of spaces at each school; sibling, proximity, and other preferences; and each student’s choices. (Through the My School DC common lottery, the six DCPS specialized high schools admit students based on specific criteria.)

When there are more students than spaces at a school, students who have a preference (such as a sibling preference) will be the first to be offered spaces. Then, random selection decides which other students will be offered spaces.

Students will be matched with no more than one school. My School DC will try to match each student with their 1st choice, then their 2nd choice, and so on through the student’s list.

****

Oh look, preferences matter!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

What's wrong, afraid to call them youself and confirm that you're full of crap? Yes, you are, because you know you're full of crap. The person I spoke to was quite able to explain the algorithm, was not reading off a script, gave examples, and answered my specific "What if...?" questions with ease. I'll take their accurate, relevant info over your admittedly (because if you had an official, verifiable source you would have posted it by now) not-official musings/misleading.

I read your posting of your conversation with the lottery person, and I can see where you misunderstood. There is a difference between weighting and priority. Weighting means you have a better chance. Priority means the person with priority gets it every time over the person without priority. We do not have a weighted system, we have a priority system. IB first priority, sibs second priority, then priority by lottery number.

What the nice person in the lottery office was saying to you is that even if you have a good lottery number, there might be a higher priority person than you who gets the spot. The "might" isn't whether they get the spot, if they exist they get it, the "might" is they might exist.

In my experience DCPS doesn't like to admit that it's a strict priority system, they tend to waffle around that point because it's so depressing for the people who don't have priority.

I don't care if I sound like a broken record. Wrong info on this is too damaging, even though no one should be relying totally on anything said here.

Re: your post, post a verifiable official source for your take on the lottery, or I don't believe it. I did not misunderstand what I was told, as I asked the specific question re: whether someone with no sibling preference or inbound but who ranked a school #1 could get in over someone with sibling or IB preference but who ranked it #2, and was told yes that is absolutely possible. There are several variables re: who the computer even looks at first and what the other applicants who are being looked at before/at the same time had re: rankings or preferences.

I won't argue terms "priority" vs. "weighting". I just know that ranking a school #1 gives you as much of an advantage as having a sibling at the school but ranking it #2... who gets that particular spot depends on who the computer looks at first. In one pull it could be the #1/no sib who gets it, in another it could be the #2 w/sib who gets it. But in either pull, #3 with or without sib or IB or not is not getting it unless they are pulled ahead of the others and don't get into their 1 or 2.

If ranking didn't matter or wasn't weighted, it wouldn't give you just as much an advantage as IB or sibling. And it was explained to me repeatedly as being just as important, giving you the same edge as IB or sibling. (Although a combo of #1, sib and IB (for PS/PK) will be hard to beat.)

Wow. You are so very wrong. It's clear to everyone here. Please call them back, speak to a supervisor and then come back here and take back everything you said. You don't even understand the difference between priority and weighting. Here is the list of preferences from the DC lottery website:

1.In-boundary with a sibling already enrolled at the school (PK3 and PK4 only)
2.In-boundary with a sibling who is applying at the same time and is matched to the school (PK3 and PK4 only)
3.In-boundary (PK3 and PK4 only)
4.Out-of-boundary with a sibling already enrolled at the school
5.Out-of-boundary with a sibling who is applying at the same time and is matched to the school
6.Out-of-boundary with proximity
7.No preference

Just curious, why do you care? It's been established that it doesn't change the fact that each parent needs to pay careful attention to the order they rank the schools. What changes whether you are right or the PP is right?

What changes is that PP presented information as "fact" because she had made a phone call. the DC lottery website is a much more valid source than someone randomly posting here. What changes is that by questioning someone spreading misinformation others reading this may be better informed. Also, I was catching up on this thread in order, what "has been established" came in later messages.