We got into our first choice school our fourth time playing the lottery (1st). We got in off the wait list.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Among the parents I know, no one has ever gotten any of their top 10 choices.

This year, according to WaPo, 64% of 24K entrants matched somewhere. But that’s a lot of folks who didn’t.

And I wonder how many of those who matched did so at a real safety that they either won't use or will do so unhappily/warily. There is no way to really assess this, but I wonder how many people are happy, or at least satisfied, with the results.

Yep. My kid matched to the school we listed as #12, but only because we put a safety school in at #12. If we'd been able to list 20 schools, it would have been our #20. School choice sounds great in theory, but for it to work in practice, you have to have enough quality options, and DC doesn't.

PK3, matched at #1 choice (HRCS that had 4 non-sib, non-staff slots to offer). Haven't looked back.

First year we had a terrible number but got into our IB where we had a great experience in PK3. Last year we got into our #2 choice (TR Young). This year we were able to apply transfer preference so we lotteried into our (now) only choice, TR 4th.

We can see TR 4th from our house, so it was worth the commute to Young to get the transfer preference this year.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I know someone who got into both YY and LAMB a few years ago.

I thought you couldn't get in two schools at the same time? I am wrong?

YY is a common lottery school. LAMB is not.

We did very well in the lottery for PK4 last year, though didn't get our #1. Matched into number 3 choice at a HRCS, ended up accepting a spot at our number 2 choice DCPS. Made it to number one on the WL for our #1 choice but never got in. Very happy with where we ended up. Didn't do the lottery this year at all. We know we got very lucky.

Anonymous wrote:I know someone who got into both YY and LAMB a few years ago.

I thought you couldn't get in two schools at the same time? I am wrong?

We got into LAMB and our #1 pick for PK3. But many people would say we "wasted" our #1 pick since it wasn't a hard school to get into.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Among the parents I know, no one has ever gotten any of their top 10 choices.

This year, according to WaPo, 64% of 24K entrants matched somewhere. But that’s a lot of folks who didn’t.

And I wonder how many of those who matched did so at a real safety that they either won't use or will do so unhappily/warily. There is no way to really assess this, but I wonder how many people are happy, or at least satisfied, with the results.

Flip side is that some of the no match folks may have just put one or two long shots and were content with other options if those didn't come through.

I know a few who got their #1 picks in PK3. We got into #1 pick in K, not right off the bat but off waitlist by May.

Anonymous wrote:Among the parents I know, no one has ever gotten any of their top 10 choices.

This year, according to WaPo, 64% of 24K entrants matched somewhere. But that’s a lot of folks who didn’t.

Among the parents I know, no one has ever gotten any of their top 10 choices.

We got LAMB and our #3 pick. I do know people who got their top choice. I know others who've gotten nothing repeatedly. It is so clearly a broken system which seems to have no good other option...

We got our #1 choices for 5th grade in 2017-18 and K in 2018-19. We also had several years of no luck, so I recognize and appreciate our good fortune.

Anonymous wrote:My DC was picked first for LAMB lottery years ago; for 6th got into Washington Latin via common lottery.

We're still playing Powerball though.

Wow