Anonymous
Post 03/17/2015 11:25     Subject: Bethune lottery
Still only 1 kid on the PK4 waitlist...seems like a good backup option for families near Brookland.
Anonymous
Post 03/17/2015 10:34     Subject: Re:Bethune lottery
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:The school has posted a "revised" lottery list on its website. We still have one child who was accepted. . .but the other child today moved from an okay slot on the wait list to near the bottom of the list for their grade. What happened to sibling preference??!


Sibling preference may not kick in until you accept the spot. Then your other child will jump to the top. (At least that's how it works -- legitimately -- with some schools).


That's how it works in the common lottery. Once you enroll (not just accept, but fill out all paperwork), then the sibling moves to the front of the waitlist. That is why there is an incentive to enroll early with the common lottery if you have a sibling who is waitlisted.

When more schools did individual lotteries, often it was not done this way; i.e., the sibling was already at the front of the waitlist after the lottery was run.
Anonymous
Post 03/17/2015 10:22     Subject: Re:Bethune lottery
Anonymous wrote:The school has posted a "revised" lottery list on its website. We still have one child who was accepted. . .but the other child today moved from an okay slot on the wait list to near the bottom of the list for their grade. What happened to sibling preference??!


Sibling preference may not kick in until you accept the spot. Then your other child will jump to the top. (At least that's how it works -- legitimately -- with some schools).
Anonymous
Post 03/16/2015 20:46     Subject: Re:Bethune lottery
The school has posted a "revised" lottery list on its website. We still have one child who was accepted. . .but the other child today moved from an okay slot on the wait list to near the bottom of the list for their grade. What happened to sibling preference??!
Anonymous
Post 03/16/2015 13:18     Subject: Re:Bethune lottery
we are one of the families whose number didn't appear on any list. I called the school this morning but didn't get any real answers. She said the person that needs to deal with this is not in today but will call me tomorrow. I mentioned that there were many others that seemed to be in the same boat, and she said most of them had sibling preference and therefore their numbers weren't on the lists.
We do not have any siblings at the school, so I'm not sure where that leaves us. But I'll post tomorrow if I learn anything new.
Anonymous
Post 03/16/2015 11:24     Subject: Re:Bethune lottery
Yes, they should redo the lottery if people were excluded, maybe they'll realize that while trying to sort this out. Although for me, PP who wasn't in the drawing, I wouldn't want to go if I got in.
Anonymous
Post 03/16/2015 10:43     Subject: Re:Bethune lottery
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Concerns about the administration organization seem justified. The initial answer I received is they may not have included my number in the actual lottery drawing. So......


I think this should be brought to the attention of DCPCSB


And to the Washington Post's education reporter.
Anonymous
Post 03/16/2015 10:43     Subject: Re:Bethune lottery
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Concerns about the administration organization seem justified. The initial answer I received is they may not have included my number in the actual lottery drawing. So......


I think this should be brought to the attention of DCPCSB


Absolutely. Completely violates the law. It is ridiculous that they dropped out of the common lottery this year and then pull this sort of thing. I wonder how many people applied and weren't included in the lottery? I would push for them to have to redo the lottery if I were you, PP.
Anonymous
Post 03/16/2015 10:41     Subject: Re:Bethune lottery
Anonymous wrote:Concerns about the administration organization seem justified. The initial answer I received is they may not have included my number in the actual lottery drawing. So......


I think this should be brought to the attention of DCPCSB
Anonymous
Post 03/16/2015 10:39     Subject: Re:Bethune lottery
Concerns about the administration organization seem justified. The initial answer I received is they may not have included my number in the actual lottery drawing. So......
Anonymous
Post 03/16/2015 09:39     Subject: Bethune lottery
I'll be curious to hear from anyone who got answers this morning. We were accepted, but this puts some questions about the school's administration into my mind.
Anonymous
Post 03/15/2015 21:14     Subject: Bethune lottery
Shouldn't sibling preference still bump you up? I would call the school.
Anonymous
Post 03/14/2015 20:46     Subject: Bethune lottery
Wow, I am shocked that the waitlist was not longer. I was thinking a lot of people would apply as a fall back, free choice in case of a shut out option.
Anonymous
Post 03/14/2015 16:09     Subject: Bethune lottery
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:The wait lists are weird in that they are in numerical order. That doesn't make sense to me if it was a random lottery.


are they allowed to do the waitlists by date/time of application? That is how YY and Stokes used to do it. Basically, the first person in line became #1, the next became #2, etc. They would draw the number of kids for whom they had open slots, then put everyone else in number order on the waitlist. So if 10 people wanted to attend, they had 5 slots, and numbers 1, 2, 4, 6, and 8 got the slots, the waitlist would look like:

1. #3
2. #5
3. #7
4. #9
5. #10

It really encouraged people to sign up as fast as possible, in some cases camping outside the night before or hiring line-sitters. If Bethune is using this model, it would make sense for the waitlist to be numerical. The people who were missing could be errors, or could be people who withdrew from the lottery.


No, what they've done is a random lottery and then ordered the results numerically so that you can find your number more easily - presumably they are not listed in the order drawn because it doesn't really matter if you were the first or the 31st to be drawn if you got in. Because a high proportion of people got in and waitlists are short it appears almost numerical, but the first 10 numbers for PK3 went like this:

Admitted: 2, 4, 5, 7, 8
Waitlist: 1, 3

It's not obvious where 6 and 9 are but perhaps they withdrew.


I think as far as ADMITTED students go, it doesn't matter that they reordered the lists numerically. But they also did it for the waitlists, which seems unfair. We have sibling preference, and are way lower on a waitlist than I expected, because they ordered the waitlists numerically and we had a higher number.


Sounds like they did the waitlist in the order that people applied, which is how Yu Ying and Stokes used to do it.


I don't think so. We applied the very first day the lottery opened, and we have almost the highest number for PK3. I very much doubt everyone applied the day the lottery opened, and no one applied after the first day. There is definitely some sort of organizational problem.
Anonymous
Post 03/14/2015 14:35     Subject: Re:Bethune lottery
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Is anyone really that surprised that their process is a little sketchy? Just saying.


Why do you say that? Just wondering - do you think they are trying to raise the stakes to become more "up and coming?"


I think that it's curious that they would choose not to be part of the common lottery when it seems obvious that it would have amounted to more applications. Why opt out unless you're trying to influence the result? Also, it allows them to keep their Marylanders if there's no real oversight.