Anonymous wrote:They don't release this because they want to discourage people from shaping their lottery lists based on how many seats there may be. Rank in order of true preference as if your number was pulled first.

But statistical probability of getting a spot is an entirely reasonable variable for families to consider when making their maximum of 12 lottery picks. Who are you to tell me or any family that probability isn't a legit variable of the "true preference" calculation?

And knowing the number of available spots for PS3 and PK helps IB families too. So is knowing how many IB w/sibling, IB, and OOB got spots last year. For many families they are trying to decide if they need to plop down nonresundable deposits for private school tuitions. If it's a long shot for getting your child an IB spot at your local DCPS you might be more willing to claim that private spot. My child attends Stoddert. Stoddert offers ONE PK class. The IB population could fill up 4. Why not tell lottery applicants that one class (18-20 spots) are anticipated? Why do people continue to defend the loss of transparency for a publicly funded school lottery? I clearly remember when I first entered the lottery for SY 2010-11 I could figure quite a bit out and make really educated picks.

This exactly. ^^^

There are a lot of people who don't know that they have zero shot of getting into, for example, Brent OOB for pk3.

Anonymous wrote:Knowing how many spots does want? Increase your anxiety when you find out the school had 40 spots and you still didn't win the lottery.

Allow you to identify a "safety"

Pretend you were totally clueless and put the following preK choices - all OOB.
Key, Mann, Murch, Hyde, Ross, Stoddert, Lafayette, Janney, Oyster, Brent, Peabody

They are your top choices given the strength of the elementary program.

If you knew that they were all overcapacity for IB students, would you rethink your lottery choices?