Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I thought it was interesting that Seaton had a huge jump in applicants, from something like 85 last year to 190 this year. Other schools in our neighborhood didn't see this jump (garrison, cleveland, etc, only jumped by 10 kids or so). I actually put seaton below cleveland and got into cleveland, but i'm wondering if Seaton was the way to go, as those numbers suggest it is going to see a huge demographic change this year. And unlike previous years, I guess there is no way to just show up at seaton on August 25 and get a spot....

The lemming mentality on this site is amazing. You are second guessing yourself because there was an increase in enrollment at a school and based on nothing else. Sheep.

Incredible. Why are people so cruel, insensitive and rude on this site? Are you like blowing the smoke off your finger pistols right now? Like "ya burnt!"?

I wouldn't have put it that way personally, but there are definitely times when schools get a ton of hype based on nothing. Seaton, last year, received a ton of hype, mostly because people "heard good things" though not one person I know who waxed poetic about the good things they heard actually sent their child there or knew anyone who did - they were all parents of 3 year olds who heard good things at an open house they attended. Cynically, I think that Seaton was also popular this year because last year, it was a solid safety bet for people who didn't get into schools they really wanted to go to. I would be willing to wager that a fair number of the ~100 more people on the Seaton list than last year heard that it was a place that they could definitely get into and put it on the list for that reason. Personally, I think a similar thing is happening with Van Ness this year. People pronouncing it the best thing that ever happened to the Hill, saying that it's going to be amazing and wonderful and the school hasn't even opened yet. Those opinions can't even be based on what they saw at an open house, because the school isn't even open yet.

Optimistically, I hope that some of this hype becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy where people hear that great things are happening, choose the school, and then work really hard to make great things happen. My worry is that when people's expectations are not met, they will burn out and look elsewhere. It's not a good way to sustain positive growth.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Re: Ward 1 schools. Bancroft still feeds to Deal. As long as that is the case, it will remain desirable and therefore difficult to get into OOB. Tubman had a jump in test scores but most higher SES families in bounds for Tubman send their kids OOB somewhere else. The school has seemed pretty opaque to me for the last couple of years, and until this year, I didn't know anyone whose children attended personally. I did know a couple of kids professionally (at risk kids) who go to Tubman but they've left the area. My understanding from the older child was that most of the people she went to school with came from the public housing blocks in Columbia Heights or else they "did not speak English." There were no white kids in her class. Marie Reed has a dual language program and Cooke has a nice building, both of which set them apart from Tubman, despite similar IB demographics.

These schools were considered safety schools last year. This year, I was reasonably sure that those assumptions would not be reliable and unfortunately for the waitlisted families, I was right. We're at Cooke and we have 5 IB PK3 students on the waitlist. Last year, we had 5 OOB PK3 students.

I think a primary reason Tubman declined in applicant numbers is due to the fact that their boundary shrunk considerably (and HD Cooke received a large amount of that -- mostly housing projects, actually). I've also visited their PK classes a number of times and believe it is now about 1/3 to 1/2 white. And their test scores are still far ahead of HD Cooke.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I thought it was interesting that Seaton had a huge jump in applicants, from something like 85 last year to 190 this year. Other schools in our neighborhood didn't see this jump (garrison, cleveland, etc, only jumped by 10 kids or so). I actually put seaton below cleveland and got into cleveland, but i'm wondering if Seaton was the way to go, as those numbers suggest it is going to see a huge demographic change this year. And unlike previous years, I guess there is no way to just show up at seaton on August 25 and get a spot....

The lemming mentality on this site is amazing. You are second guessing yourself because there was an increase in enrollment at a school and based on nothing else. Sheep.

Incredible. Why are people so cruel, insensitive and rude on this site? Are you like blowing the smoke off your finger pistols right now? Like "ya burnt!"?

Anonymous wrote:I think what's interesting is the clear drop from HA 175 to Shepherd 108 (though apparently a few were left off).

As a Ward 1 resident, I'm also interested in the relative rankings of Ward 1 schools that are relatively close to each other - Bancroft, Tubman, Marie Reed, and Cooke. Bancroft has far and away jumped a tier, but the other three remain a step below - though a few years ago the wait lists were even smaller. I'm also interested in Tubman as a case study - when their test scores went sky high it was surprising they didn't jump too much in perception (as measured by waitlist), and now Tubman falls behind Marie Reed and Cooke.

Lots of interesting stuff here.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I thought it was interesting that Seaton had a huge jump in applicants, from something like 85 last year to 190 this year. Other schools in our neighborhood didn't see this jump (garrison, cleveland, etc, only jumped by 10 kids or so). I actually put seaton below cleveland and got into cleveland, but i'm wondering if Seaton was the way to go, as those numbers suggest it is going to see a huge demographic change this year. And unlike previous years, I guess there is no way to just show up at seaton on August 25 and get a spot....

The lemming mentality on this site is amazing. You are second guessing yourself because there was an increase in enrollment at a school and based on nothing else. Sheep.

Anonymous wrote:I thought it was interesting that Seaton had a huge jump in applicants, from something like 85 last year to 190 this year. Other schools in our neighborhood didn't see this jump (garrison, cleveland, etc, only jumped by 10 kids or so). I actually put seaton below cleveland and got into cleveland, but i'm wondering if Seaton was the way to go, as those numbers suggest it is going to see a huge demographic change this year. And unlike previous years, I guess there is no way to just show up at seaton on August 25 and get a spot....

Anonymous wrote:Re: Ward 1 schools. Bancroft still feeds to Deal. As long as that is the case, it will remain desirable and therefore difficult to get into OOB. Tubman had a jump in test scores but most higher SES families in bounds for Tubman send their kids OOB somewhere else. The school has seemed pretty opaque to me for the last couple of years, and until this year, I didn't know anyone whose children attended personally. I did know a couple of kids professionally (at risk kids) who go to Tubman but they've left the area. My understanding from the older child was that most of the people she went to school with came from the public housing blocks in Columbia Heights or else they "did not speak English." There were no white kids in her class. Marie Reed has a dual language program and Cooke has a nice building, both of which set them apart from Tubman, despite similar IB demographics.

These schools were considered safety schools last year. This year, I was reasonably sure that those assumptions would not be reliable and unfortunately for the waitlisted families, I was right. We're at Cooke and we have 5 IB PK3 students on the waitlist. Last year, we had 5 OOB PK3 students.

Anonymous wrote:I thought it was interesting that Seaton had a huge jump in applicants, from something like 85 last year to 190 this year. Other schools in our neighborhood didn't see this jump (garrison, cleveland, etc, only jumped by 10 kids or so). I actually put seaton below cleveland and got into cleveland, but i'm wondering if Seaton was the way to go, as those numbers suggest it is going to see a huge demographic change this year. And unlike previous years, I guess there is no way to just show up at seaton on August 25 and get a spot....

Anonymous wrote: (though apparently a few were left off).

As a Ward 1 resident, I'm also interested in the relative rankings of Ward 1 schools that are relatively close to each other - Bancroft, Tubman, Marie Reed, and Cooke. Bancroft has far and away jumped a tier, but the other three remain a step below - though a few years ago the wait lists were even smaller. I'm also interested in Tubman as a case study - when their test scores went sky high it was surprising they didn't jump too much in perception (as measured by waitlist), and now Tubman falls behind Marie Reed and Cooke.

Anonymous wrote:I think what's interesting is the clear drop from HA 175 to Shepherd 108 (though apparently a few were left off).

As a Ward 1 resident, I'm also interested in the relative rankings of Ward 1 schools that are relatively close to each other - Bancroft, Tubman, Marie Reed, and Cooke. Bancroft has far and away jumped a tier, but the other three remain a step below - though a few years ago the wait lists were even smaller. I'm also interested in Tubman as a case study - when their test scores went sky high it was surprising they didn't jump too much in perception (as measured by waitlist), and now Tubman falls behind Marie Reed and Cooke.

Lots of interesting stuff here.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Curious - where did you find this? Has the individual dcps school data been released? I'm always interested to know how many seats went to inbounds, siblings, etc.

The date is available here, at the bottom of the page: http://dcps.dc.gov/DCPS/Learn+About+Schools/Lottery+and+Admissions:+Apply+to+Our+Schools.

Anonymous wrote:Curious - where did you find this? Has the individual dcps school data been released? I'm always interested to know how many seats went to inbounds, siblings, etc.