Anonymous wrote:here are our results for our 4 year old. she's in AppleTree-LP right now (which we love)


RANK SCHOOL NAME PREFERENCES STATUS Status Definitions NEXT STEPS
1 School-Within-School Waitlisted - #50
2 Maury Elementary School Waitlisted - #79
3 Ludlow-Taylor Elementary School Waitlisted - #19
4 Brent Elementary School Waitlisted - #54
5 Peabody Elementary School Match (enrollment pending)


I think we'll stay w/AppleTree-LP and roll again next year? Peabody is tempting but Watkins doesn't seem popular? Ludlow Taylor also tempting, assuming at 19 we'd have a shot

As somebody who used to work at AppleTree, but whose kids at a DCPS school, I know that AT Lincoln Park has a lot of happy families. However when you are part of a bigger elementary school, you get specials teachers, better outdoor space, and a solid option for the following year. Not sure what your IB school is, but Peabody and Watkins are solid options.

Anonymous wrote:waitlisted #125 at yu ying Pk3 ahahahhaaa

that's ok, i wasn't really sold on the drive and am very skeptical the new building will be ready, but wanted to give little one a shot at a second language. got into my second choice, will be able to walk the little one to school this year and we can see how things go.

YY admin has been open with current families that the new building will not be ready when school starts in Fall 2024.

Anonymous wrote:here are our results for our 4 year old. she's in AppleTree-LP right now (which we love)


RANK SCHOOL NAME PREFERENCES STATUS Status Definitions NEXT STEPS
1 School-Within-School Waitlisted - #50
2 Maury Elementary School Waitlisted - #79
3 Ludlow-Taylor Elementary School Waitlisted - #19
4 Brent Elementary School Waitlisted - #54
5 Peabody Elementary School Match (enrollment pending)


I think we'll stay w/AppleTree-LP and roll again next year? Peabody is tempting but Watkins doesn't seem popular? Ludlow Taylor also tempting, assuming at 19 we'd have a shot

Guess it depends what your IB is. I don't think I'd do Peabody over JO Wilson. And I wouldn't do it for Payne except if you were really worried about feeder, but I would just tell you not to worry. I think your odds are not great for L/T (IB older kids can show up and then their siblings will be ahead of you) but if you got it i would do it.

Anonymous wrote:here are our results for our 4 year old. she's in AppleTree-LP right now (which we love)


RANK SCHOOL NAME PREFERENCES STATUS Status Definitions NEXT STEPS
1 School-Within-School Waitlisted - #50
2 Maury Elementary School Waitlisted - #79
3 Ludlow-Taylor Elementary School Waitlisted - #19
4 Brent Elementary School Waitlisted - #54
5 Peabody Elementary School Match (enrollment pending)


I think we'll stay w/AppleTree-LP and roll again next year? Peabody is tempting but Watkins doesn't seem popular? Ludlow Taylor also tempting, assuming at 19 we'd have a shot

Are you in bounds for one of those Hill schools for kindergarten? If not, I would take the spot you got at Peabody or try for LT

Anonymous wrote:So if your lottery number says #4, and you have in boundary preference, does that mean you are 4th on the list of those with in boundary preference, or are you 4th among all current applicants (and 1-3 are potentially sibling attending preference)?

Your waitlist number is always your overall number on the waitlist. There is not a separate waitlist for kids with preferences. You are fourth in line for the school.

However, your IB preference likely helped you get such a high number, jumping you past OOB students with better lottery draws but no preference.

And yes, it's possible the one or more of the 3 kids on the list above yours are both IB and sibling preferences. But they also might just be IB preference. Or just sibling preference. That part is not possible to know but also doesn't change anything for you. You're fourth on the list and unless you get bumped due to a student gaining a new preference (usually sibling preference due to a sibling being given an offer or admitted to the school), you are fourth in line for an offer. Congrats -- those are decent odds at the vast majority of schools (there are some who wont even make that many offers, but most will at least go to 4 on their waitlist).

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We are waitlisted #3 for a school even with sibling preference.

Is that #3 in the sibling preference or overall?

Are there two other siblings parents waiting to get in ahead of us or is it #3 regardless of anything?

If you are #3 with sibling preference the other kids ahead of you also have siblings.

Or they might have a preference higher than sibling. One thing to note, poster ranked #3, is that other people can jump ahead of you if they have a higher preference. So depending on your situation, you might see your number go to 4, 5, etc.

There’s no preference higher than sibling.

In-boundary with sibling attending is higher than OOB with sibling attending at all DCPS schools that have a boundary.
Equitable access is higher than sibling at the Children's Guild.
Breakthrough puts children of staff higher than sibling.
There may be others that put preferences in different order. For example, some charters have a twin preference separate from sibling preference.

here are our results for our 4 year old. she's in AppleTree-LP right now (which we love)


RANK SCHOOL NAME PREFERENCES STATUS Status Definitions NEXT STEPS
1 School-Within-School Waitlisted - #50
2 Maury Elementary School Waitlisted - #79
3 Ludlow-Taylor Elementary School Waitlisted - #19
4 Brent Elementary School Waitlisted - #54
5 Peabody Elementary School Match (enrollment pending)


I think we'll stay w/AppleTree-LP and roll again next year? Peabody is tempting but Watkins doesn't seem popular? Ludlow Taylor also tempting, assuming at 19 we'd have a shot

Anonymous wrote:Rising ninth grader. Walls did not interview, Banneker rejected after interview, dismal numbers on the lottery-based schools.

Same all around.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We are waitlisted #3 for a school even with sibling preference.

Is that #3 in the sibling preference or overall?

Are there two other siblings parents waiting to get in ahead of us or is it #3 regardless of anything?

If you are #3 with sibling preference the other kids ahead of you also have siblings.

Or they might have a preference higher than sibling. One thing to note, poster ranked #3, is that other people can jump ahead of you if they have a higher preference. So depending on your situation, you might see your number go to 4, 5, etc.

I don’t think that’s right, see here from the Waitlist FAQ on myschooldc:

How waitlists are ordered
Waitlists are ordered by preference group (in-boundary, sibling, etc.) followed by students with no lottery preference for that school. Each group is ordered by random lottery number. Students who apply after the lottery application deadlines are added to waitlists below lottery applicants within the appropriate preference group and are ordered by submission date.

Each school determines which preferences are offered at their school and in what order. This information can be found on each school’s My School DC profile. Click here to learn how lottery preferences work.

This waitlist FAQ confirms what PP said, unless I am missing something. "Students who apply after the lottery application deadlines are added to waitlists below lottery applicants within the appropriate preference group and are ordered by submission date." So your number can get higher if people are added to the preference group above yours.

Plus some schools have the at-risk preference, don't they? That one definitely continues to apply after the lottery.

PP yeah seeing that now thanks

Anonymous wrote:Any opinions on Creative Minds?

fine for PK or K, but the student body is too rich to score so low on PARCC. They don't seem to be teaching anything, but there's some nice outdoor space.

So if your lottery number says #4, and you have in boundary preference, does that mean you are 4th on the list of those with in boundary preference, or are you 4th among all current applicants (and 1-3 are potentially sibling attending preference)?

No luck at Latins, Deal, Hardy for 6th. Glad we did the private school applications and happy with those results. Bye bye DCPS and DCPCS!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Rising ninth grader. Walls did not interview, Banneker rejected after interview, dismal numbers on the lottery-based schools.

Very curious if this will make more families dip their toes in at a DCPS high school they would have otherwise not considered. Getting a private school plan in place or moving in 5 months is not going to work for anybody.

For those of us who did not do the lottery, and I forget every year - when/where are the results posted by school so you can see the waitlist length?

It won't, not if the DCPS high school is Cardozo or Roosevelt or Dunbar. If these kids/families didn't (at least) add McKinley to the lottery list as a backup, it was because they had a different alternate plan.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We are waitlisted #3 for a school even with sibling preference.

Is that #3 in the sibling preference or overall?

Are there two other siblings parents waiting to get in ahead of us or is it #3 regardless of anything?

If you are #3 with sibling preference the other kids ahead of you also have siblings.

Or they might have a preference higher than sibling. One thing to note, poster ranked #3, is that other people can jump ahead of you if they have a higher preference. So depending on your situation, you might see your number go to 4, 5, etc.

I don’t think that’s right, see here from the Waitlist FAQ on myschooldc:

How waitlists are ordered
Waitlists are ordered by preference group (in-boundary, sibling, etc.) followed by students with no lottery preference for that school. Each group is ordered by random lottery number. Students who apply after the lottery application deadlines are added to waitlists below lottery applicants within the appropriate preference group and are ordered by submission date.

Each school determines which preferences are offered at their school and in what order. This information can be found on each school’s My School DC profile. Click here to learn how lottery preferences work.

This waitlist FAQ confirms what PP said, unless I am missing something. "Students who apply after the lottery application deadlines are added to waitlists below lottery applicants within the appropriate preference group and are ordered by submission date." So your number can get higher if people are added to the preference group above yours.

Plus some schools have the at-risk preference, don't they? That one definitely continues to apply after the lottery.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We are waitlisted #3 for a school even with sibling preference.

Is that #3 in the sibling preference or overall?

Are there two other siblings parents waiting to get in ahead of us or is it #3 regardless of anything?

If you are #3 with sibling preference the other kids ahead of you also have siblings.

Or they might have a preference higher than sibling. One thing to note, poster ranked #3, is that other people can jump ahead of you if they have a higher preference. So depending on your situation, you might see your number go to 4, 5, etc.

I don’t think that’s right, see here from the Waitlist FAQ on myschooldc:

How waitlists are ordered
Waitlists are ordered by preference group (in-boundary, sibling, etc.) followed by students with no lottery preference for that school. Each group is ordered by random lottery number. Students who apply after the lottery application deadlines are added to waitlists below lottery applicants within the appropriate preference group and are ordered by submission date.

Each school determines which preferences are offered at their school and in what order. This information can be found on each school’s My School DC profile. Click here to learn how lottery preferences work.

DP. The reason people can jump ahead of you on the list is if they have a sibling who got an offer at the school in the lottery, the system will bump them based on their newly acquired preference. Example:

Charlie gets a lottery draw of #81 (in the whole lottery, not at a particular school). Joey gets a lottery draw of #101. Both lottery for Elementary School ABC and rank it 1st.

But Joey already has an older sibling already at Elementary School ABC. So when the waitlist if formed, Joey jumps to #2 on the list, behind one other kid with a sibling at the school (but a better overall lottery number). Charlie is stuck down at #30 on the list, with no preference, even though his overall lottery number is higher than Joey's because Charlie has no preference.

Then Charlie's sister get's an offer for a spot in 1st grade at the school in the same lottery. Charlie's sister accepts the offer. So now Charlie has a sibling at the school, too. Since Charlie's overall lottery rank is higher (81 versus 101), Charlie will now leapfrog all the way up to #1 on the waitlist, past Joey.

And this is why it is not uncommon for families to see a waitlist number tick up a spot or two shortly after lottery results are released. It's the result of families accepting spots for siblings, thus bumping kids up the waitlist.