Anonymous wrote:

First, if I'm #10,000 out of 10,000 total applicants for PK4, there's no way I'm getting in to any school anywhere. If every school has a wait list that places me based on that number, I will be at the bottom every time. Even if I have preferences, I'll be the loser in every tie-breaker. That simply cant't be the way this thing is run.

the lottery number is your ID number, right? I have a number in the 5,000s. The lottery is for nearly all DCPS and Charter schools, and while thousands of people have entered the lottery, their preferences and their grade levels are going to be very, very different. My child is entering 5th grade. My lottery is ONLY in competition with others who are applying for 5th grade. Let's say my lottery number is 12,234 for example. I'm not in competition with the person holding 12,233, because that person is applying for PK4 --

your lottery number is NOT your ID number. no one currently knows their lottery number. The algorithm assigns the lottery number and then goes through the rankings using the deferred acceptance model until all spaces are filled.

Anonymous wrote:I don't know if there's a secret ELL preference or not, but the dual language/ immersion craze of the Highly Sought After Higher SES crowd EOTP has meant more demand for schools like Powell and Bancroft. Each of those schools has a population that NEEDS dual immersion, which necessarily limits the number of seats on offer.

And makes it easy to be delusional about which schools are "safety." Again, many people spend no time at all on DCUM.

I'm the PP of previous post--yes I agree with you on this one...however a true dual language program has a 50/50 student population so that is one benefit of the changing demographics--kids are interacting more with kids from the other language group. But yes, I can't imagine the sinking feeling of being an IB family with few alternatives not getting into their IB school. Much worse than being middle class and not getting into your "awesome charter."

and to add to what I said above, if my number is 12,234, and another parent's number is 123, and we are both applying for PK4, but I chose MV and EL Haynes, and the person holding 123 chose Bancroft and Garrison, we are also not in the same lotteries.

First, if I'm #10,000 out of 10,000 total applicants for PK4, there's no way I'm getting in to any school anywhere. If every school has a wait list that places me based on that number, I will be at the bottom every time. Even if I have preferences, I'll be the loser in every tie-breaker. That simply cant't be the way this thing is run.

the lottery number is your ID number, right? I have a number in the 5,000s. The lottery is for nearly all DCPS and Charter schools, and while thousands of people have entered the lottery, their preferences and their grade levels are going to be very, very different. My child is entering 5th grade. My lottery is ONLY in competition with others who are applying for 5th grade. Let's say my lottery number is 12,234 for example. I'm not in competition with the person holding 12,233, because that person is applying for PK4 --

I don't know if there's a secret ELL preference or not, but the dual language/ immersion craze of the Highly Sought After Higher SES crowd EOTP has meant more demand for schools like Powell and Bancroft. Each of those schools has a population that NEEDS dual immersion, which necessarily limits the number of seats on offer.

And makes it easy to be delusional about which schools are "safety." Again, many people spend no time at all on DCUM.

New P here. I still think you need a safety for the very reason you state--too many people applying to the same schools. It's not that hard to figure out what a safety is (although I admit some are delusional and think any school EOTP is a safety). Just saying about 20 minutes on DCUM and you'll see that a lot of people have mentioned safeties. And I'm still following the instructions because I only chose safeties I would want my child to attend.

I didn't understand the last part. Are you saying there is a secret ELL preference?

^^And I don't get "trades" either. Seems like the whole point of a lottery is to eliminate bargaining. You takes what you gets.

Completely agree with this response. This is why it is important to have safeties. My IB school is a great safety--goes through its entire waitlist each year and accepts all IB applicants in initial lottery. There are lots of schools EOTP that for this profile. Appletree Columbia Heights has 100 PK3 spots and called all 400+ people on their waitlist twice last year to fill their spots. You definitely can get in even with the last number in the lottery. But you have to have one or more safeties if you want to ensure a spot.

But do you see why that is entirely unfair to people who don't spend countless hours wringing their hands over this, but rather follow the instruction of myschooldc.org and select based on true preference.? Not picking safeties. How the hell am I supposed to know what a safety is? We're not all data geeks. I could think my inbound school is a safety, but lo and behold! They're offering 6 seats in PK4, and I didn't learn this until I filled out the application two hours before the deadline.

If it's a true safety, it should be something I can get into beyond the lottery, don't you think?

I don't want to come off as snarky here, but there's a natural bias toward one's own situation, and "unpopular inbound safety pick" doesn't resemble mine in any way.

I feel certain that most people EOTP (and not on Capitol Hill) have a charter or OOB DCPS school heading their rankings. Most will NOT get their first, second or even third choice. We're all going for the same schools, so it's just not possible. We're even going for the same OOB schools. This past Sunday turned into a lovely day to compare notes at the playground. When you consider that some families have ELL and a limited number of schools that will work for them, there's a density problem added to the mix. If DCPS knows nothing about me except my address and that Spanish is primarily spoken there, maybe I'm going to get an additional preference to which the DCUM crowd isn't privvy.

It just doesn't seem accurate to say that everyone will get one of their top picks.

Anonymous wrote:Different poster - no, it makes absolutely NO sense to consider the scenario where one applicant comes in last in EACH of the 12 lotteries. The odds of that happening are almost zero with the number of people applying. But if everyone gets only one random number and that's their number for every school... someone has to be very last. Someone else has to be next to very last. And neither of them are getting in anywhere remotely popular unless, well unless the school is only kinds popular. The last numbers are screwed and that is so unfair to those who get the crappier numbers. And there will be many. Sucks and seems much less fair.

While it may seem counter-intuitive, the lottery folks are right to use a single lottery number. If the each school ran a separate lottery, you might get a high number in a school you liked LEAST and a low number in a school you liked the MOST, and others might have the same situation but for opposite schools, which creates situations that previous posters described where it might be beneficial for you to "trade" with someone else. Using a single lottery number prevents these inefficient matches, and the end result is that more people are matched to their higher-ranked schools using a single lottery number system than would be possible with a multiple lottery number system.

But everyone has preferences at at least one school. The lottery is your shot at a better school, and it distributes this shot randomly. If you want a guarantee you need to move in bounds to the school you want to go to.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
I've tried for the last five hours to make sense of the idea that one lottery number across all the schools on my list is somehow more beneficial to everyone.

And it just doesn't. Make. Sense.

First, if I'm #10,000 out of 10,000 total applicants for PK4, there's no way I'm getting in to any school anywhere. If every school has a wait list that places me based on that number, I will be at the bottom every time. Even if I have preferences, I'll be the loser in every tie-breaker. That simply cant't be the way this thing is run.

What makes sense is that I get assigned a random number at each school on my list. So I could be #303 out of 303 applicants at my top ranked school--
...

At the same time (not in a different round) my tracking number is entered into a lottery at my number 2 choice. Again, I have no preferences, and this time I've got a great number--#3! ...

My third choice is my inbound school and my so-so number, let's say #36 out 85, doesn't get me a seat, but I'm still ahead of an OOB, single-child family who got a better number--unless they ranked the school higher than I did.

But if I have a single sucky number across all schools, and my next door neighbor has #8 across all schools, she has a better shot at getting a seat at my 12th ranked school than I do. At the very least, she has a better shot at our IB school, which is definitely somewhere on her list. I can't see how I'm supposed to wait, round by round, for my 10k number to make way for all other preferences at all schools. THEN I get to enter round 2 along with all the families who missed the March 3 deadline. And then it's an entirely new lottery number that gets drawn at each school, but this time we're all vying for fewer seats and mostly trying for the best possible wait list number behind everyone who's already on it.

And now, I am completely worn out by the whole shebang.

NP here, and I edited the above for brevity. Couple of things to think about (dcmom is 100% correct in everything she's written so this is just to explain further):

1) You are focusing on how bad it would be to be last in the single-number lottery, e.g. #10,000 out of #10,000. But you have not considered that you could also be last in every single one of the 12 individual school lotteries you enter under the previous model. And although we don't have the sizes of any of these lotteries to compare, we can safely say that if you have the absolute worst luck, you will not get into any school under either model.

2) This scenario in bold, where you get nothing in the first round - no lottery process can prevent this! There simply aren't enough spots at the in-demand schools. At least the current model makes it as efficient as possible ( efficient meaning no pareto-improving trades are possible, i.e., when the lottery is done, no-one can be made better off without making someone else worse off - this is what dcmom meant when she referred to "trades")

Different poster - no, it makes absolutely NO sense to consider the scenario where one applicant comes in last in EACH of the 12 lotteries. The odds of that happening are almost zero with the number of people applying. But if everyone gets only one random number and that's their number for every school... someone has to be very last. Someone else has to be next to very last. And neither of them are getting in anywhere remotely popular unless, well unless the school is only kinds popular. The last numbers are screwed and that is so unfair to those who get the crappier numbers. And there will be many. Sucks and seems much less fair.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
I've tried for the last five hours to make sense of the idea that one lottery number across all the schools on my list is somehow more beneficial to everyone.

And it just doesn't. Make. Sense.

First, if I'm #10,000 out of 10,000 total applicants for PK4, there's no way I'm getting in to any school anywhere. If every school has a wait list that places me based on that number, I will be at the bottom every time. Even if I have preferences, I'll be the loser in every tie-breaker. That simply cant't be the way this thing is run.

What makes sense is that I get assigned a random number at each school on my list. So I could be #303 out of 303 applicants at my top ranked school--
...

At the same time (not in a different round) my tracking number is entered into a lottery at my number 2 choice. Again, I have no preferences, and this time I've got a great number--#3! ...

My third choice is my inbound school and my so-so number, let's say #36 out 85, doesn't get me a seat, but I'm still ahead of an OOB, single-child family who got a better number--unless they ranked the school higher than I did.

But if I have a single sucky number across all schools, and my next door neighbor has #8 across all schools, she has a better shot at getting a seat at my 12th ranked school than I do. At the very least, she has a better shot at our IB school, which is definitely somewhere on her list. I can't see how I'm supposed to wait, round by round, for my 10k number to make way for all other preferences at all schools. THEN I get to enter round 2 along with all the families who missed the March 3 deadline. And then it's an entirely new lottery number that gets drawn at each school, but this time we're all vying for fewer seats and mostly trying for the best possible wait list number behind everyone who's already on it.

And now, I am completely worn out by the whole shebang.

NP here, and I edited the above for brevity. Couple of things to think about (dcmom is 100% correct in everything she's written so this is just to explain further):

1) You are focusing on how bad it would be to be last in the single-number lottery, e.g. #10,000 out of #10,000. But you have not considered that you could also be last in every single one of the 12 individual school lotteries you enter under the previous model. And although we don't have the sizes of any of these lotteries to compare, we can safely say that if you have the absolute worst luck, you will not get into any school under either model.

2) This scenario in bold, where you get nothing in the first round - no lottery process can prevent this! There simply aren't enough spots at the in-demand schools. At least the current model makes it as efficient as possible ( efficient meaning no pareto-improving trades are possible, i.e., when the lottery is done, no-one can be made better off without making someone else worse off - this is what dcmom meant when she referred to "trades")

Completely agree with this response. This is why it is important to have safeties. My IB school is a great safety--goes through its entire waitlist each year and accepts all IB applicants in initial lottery. There are lots of schools EOTP that for this profile. Appletree Columbia Heights has 100 PK3 spots and called all 400+ people on their waitlist twice last year to fill their spots. You definitely can get in even with the last number in the lottery. But you have to have one or more safeties if you want to ensure a spot.

No lottery algorithm can make more spots available at the highly desirable schools.

Anonymous wrote:
I've tried for the last five hours to make sense of the idea that one lottery number across all the schools on my list is somehow more beneficial to everyone.

And it just doesn't. Make. Sense.

First, if I'm #10,000 out of 10,000 total applicants for PK4, there's no way I'm getting in to any school anywhere. If every school has a wait list that places me based on that number, I will be at the bottom every time. Even if I have preferences, I'll be the loser in every tie-breaker. That simply cant't be the way this thing is run.

What makes sense is that I get assigned a random number at each school on my list. So I could be #303 out of 303 applicants at my top ranked school--
...

At the same time (not in a different round) my tracking number is entered into a lottery at my number 2 choice. Again, I have no preferences, and this time I've got a great number--#3! ...

My third choice is my inbound school and my so-so number, let's say #36 out 85, doesn't get me a seat, but I'm still ahead of an OOB, single-child family who got a better number--unless they ranked the school higher than I did.

But if I have a single sucky number across all schools, and my next door neighbor has #8 across all schools, she has a better shot at getting a seat at my 12th ranked school than I do. At the very least, she has a better shot at our IB school, which is definitely somewhere on her list. I can't see how I'm supposed to wait, round by round, for my 10k number to make way for all other preferences at all schools. THEN I get to enter round 2 along with all the families who missed the March 3 deadline. And then it's an entirely new lottery number that gets drawn at each school, but this time we're all vying for fewer seats and mostly trying for the best possible wait list number behind everyone who's already on it.

And now, I am completely worn out by the whole shebang.

NP here, and I edited the above for brevity. Couple of things to think about (dcmom is 100% correct in everything she's written so this is just to explain further):

1) You are focusing on how bad it would be to be last in the single-number lottery, e.g. #10,000 out of #10,000. But you have not considered that you could also be last in every single one of the 12 individual school lotteries you enter under the previous model. And although we don't have the sizes of any of these lotteries to compare, we can safely say that if you have the absolute worst luck, you will not get into any school under either model.

2) This scenario in bold, where you get nothing in the first round - no lottery process can prevent this! There simply aren't enough spots at the in-demand schools. At least the current model makes it as efficient as possible ( efficient meaning no pareto-improving trades are possible, i.e., when the lottery is done, no-one can be made better off without making someone else worse off - this is what dcmom meant when she referred to "trades")

I felt strongly that each school should randomly order lottery #s until I ran through an example with separate lottery numbers from each school and with a single number, and it came out so much better with a single number. People are more likely to get into a higher ranked choice, and you don't have the situation where mutually-beneficial trades are possible (a terrible part of the prior system). If someone gets a relatively good waitlist number at several schools, that person will not be able to accept multiple spots, so the effect is to basically continue letting people into higher-ranked choices while they release their less desirable choices to those with worse lottery numbers. I think this algorithm is a huge improvement over last year's based on the simulation I ran.

I've tried for the last five hours to make sense of the idea that one lottery number across all the schools on my list is somehow more beneficial to everyone.

And it just doesn't. Make. Sense.

First, if I'm #10,000 out of 10,000 total applicants for PK4, there's no way I'm getting in to any school anywhere. If every school has a wait list that places me based on that number, I will be at the bottom every time. Even if I have preferences, I'll be the loser in every tie-breaker. That simply cant't be the way this thing is run.

What makes sense is that I get assigned a random number at each school on my list. So I could be #303 out of 303 applicants at my top ranked school--the total # vying for PK4 seats at that school only--with no preferences to put me higher on the list. What gets me higher is that others have ranked the school lower and gotten seats at other schools. I'm still behind all the families with preferences, but above those who ranked it lower than #1. I'm in a "tie" with all the other applicants--for that grade at that school--and my sucky number means I'm never getting in.

At the same time (not in a different round) my tracking number is entered into a lottery at my number 2 choice. Again, I have no preferences, and this time I've got a great number--#3! But I'm up against 450 applicants-- vying for that grade for that school--and after the preference families are lined up, there are still another 200 families, also with no preferences, who listed it as their #1 choice. Alas, I'm behind all of them.

My third choice is my inbound school and my so-so number, let's say #36 out 85, doesn't get me a seat, but I'm still ahead of an OOB, single-child family who got a better number--unless they ranked the school higher than I did.

Rank has to be that unnamed preference and there still has to be a separate lottery for each grade at each school.

But if I have a single sucky number across all schools, and my next door neighbor has #8 across all schools, she has a better shot at getting a seat at my 12th ranked school than I do. At the very least, she has a better shot at our IB school, which is definitely somewhere on her list. I can't see how I'm supposed to wait, round by round, for my 10k number to make way for all other preferences at all schools. THEN I get to enter round 2 along with all the families who missed the March 3 deadline. And then it's an entirely new lottery number that gets drawn at each school, but this time we're all vying for fewer seats and mostly trying for the best possible wait list number behind everyone who's already on it.

And now, I am completely worn out by the whole shebang.

The trades aren't necessary with a single lottery number. Everyone gets into the highest school they've ranked with an open spot. There is no situation where I prefer A but get into B and you prefer B but get into A. The results are similar to if they pulled your lottery number and started with school 1, going down until they find a school with an available spot.