Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I posted earlier about open houses and how I did not find them useful. I thought talking to parents and researching the school far more useful than an Open House. Miracles happen. I got my kids in our number one choice school. However, I think it's less wise to plan 17 open house visits. Maybe go to your top choice. Definitely go to your safety school open houses. Another poster described the difficulty of keeping your emotions in check during the open houses, and I agree with them. It's hard going to a great school and getting all worked up and excited to send your kid there only to find there are maybe 2 spots available.

I think the best place is edfest because you can talk to the principle, get the literature, ask your questions, and move on. Drive past the school to see if it looks okay. But sometimes you will go to the open houses, emotionally invest in the school by taking a day off from work, see the happy little kids there, only to find out that your little one doesn't have a chance. That is hard. Go to edfest instead.

I agree about open houses. The three that I've been to turned me off so much that I briefly considered home schooling. But everyone is different.

Definitely check out the neighborhood school, even if you think it's some place you'd never consider. A lot of people are surprised. Talk to parents, who are available to share their experiences at nearly every school. I also agree with ranking in order of your true preference. But if you need to get into a school for financial reasons, consider ranking your neighborhood school a little bit higher than the bottom of the list. DCPS wants to put neighborhood families in neighborhood schools, so make it 3 or 4 to ensure that you're in and not on a wait list behind 40 siblings.

A little bit of an exaggeration. Only a few schools have that many siblings on waitlists for PK3.

I'm pretty sure this advice is wrong; your position on the school's wait list in relation to others is independent of where you ranked the school compared to others' rankings. For example, if person A ranks their neighborhood school at #1 and person B ranks the same school (also with inbound preference) as # 12, person B will still be above person A on the waitlist it that person's application lottery number is higher than person A's.

But if everyone is ranking the school at #12 and person B's number is lower, then they're shut out completely.

We were the second-to-last on the accepted list at our neighborhood school after getting a five-digit lottery number. It's just a theory, but I don't think we would have made it in if we'd ranked it at #12 instead of #4. That really was our true preference, however, because I'd done the commute calculations and there were only three other schools that seemed worth going out of the way at rush hour.

As for siblings taking slots, people on this forum forget that there are families at these less-than-desirable schools who prefer their neighborhood option and send multiple kids there. You can make assumptions about the availability of seats because "everyone knows it's a terrible school" but you might also find yourself shut out and scraping the bottom of the barrel in round 2.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I posted earlier about open houses and how I did not find them useful. I thought talking to parents and researching the school far more useful than an Open House. Miracles happen. I got my kids in our number one choice school. However, I think it's less wise to plan 17 open house visits. Maybe go to your top choice. Definitely go to your safety school open houses. Another poster described the difficulty of keeping your emotions in check during the open houses, and I agree with them. It's hard going to a great school and getting all worked up and excited to send your kid there only to find there are maybe 2 spots available.

I think the best place is edfest because you can talk to the principle, get the literature, ask your questions, and move on. Drive past the school to see if it looks okay. But sometimes you will go to the open houses, emotionally invest in the school by taking a day off from work, see the happy little kids there, only to find out that your little one doesn't have a chance. That is hard. Go to edfest instead.

I agree about open houses. The three that I've been to turned me off so much that I briefly considered home schooling. But everyone is different.

Definitely check out the neighborhood school, even if you think it's some place you'd never consider. A lot of people are surprised. Talk to parents, who are available to share their experiences at nearly every school. I also agree with ranking in order of your true preference. But if you need to get into a school for financial reasons, consider ranking your neighborhood school a little bit higher than the bottom of the list. DCPS wants to put neighborhood families in neighborhood schools, so make it 3 or 4 to ensure that you're in and not on a wait list behind 40 siblings.

A little bit of an exaggeration. Only a few schools have that many siblings on waitlists for PK3.

I'm pretty sure this advice is wrong; your position on the school's wait list in relation to others is independent of where you ranked the school compared to others' rankings. For example, if person A ranks their neighborhood school at #1 and person B ranks the same school (also with inbound preference) as # 12, person B will still be above person A on the waitlist it that person's application lottery number is higher than person A's.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I posted earlier about open houses and how I did not find them useful. I thought talking to parents and researching the school far more useful than an Open House. Miracles happen. I got my kids in our number one choice school. However, I think it's less wise to plan 17 open house visits. Maybe go to your top choice. Definitely go to your safety school open houses. Another poster described the difficulty of keeping your emotions in check during the open houses, and I agree with them. It's hard going to a great school and getting all worked up and excited to send your kid there only to find there are maybe 2 spots available.

I think the best place is edfest because you can talk to the principle, get the literature, ask your questions, and move on. Drive past the school to see if it looks okay. But sometimes you will go to the open houses, emotionally invest in the school by taking a day off from work, see the happy little kids there, only to find out that your little one doesn't have a chance. That is hard. Go to edfest instead.

I agree about open houses. The three that I've been to turned me off so much that I briefly considered home schooling. But everyone is different.

Definitely check out the neighborhood school, even if you think it's some place you'd never consider. A lot of people are surprised. Talk to parents, who are available to share their experiences at nearly every school. I also agree with ranking in order of your true preference. But if you need to get into a school for financial reasons, consider ranking your neighborhood school a little bit higher than the bottom of the list. DCPS wants to put neighborhood families in neighborhood schools, so make it 3 or 4 to ensure that you're in and not on a wait list behind 40 siblings.

A little bit of an exaggeration. Only a few schools have that many siblings on waitlists for PK3.

I'm pretty sure this advice is wrong; your position on the school's wait list in relation to others is independent of where you ranked the school compared to others' rankings. For example, if person A ranks their neighborhood school at #1 and person B ranks the same school (also with inbound preference) as # 12, person B will still be above person A on the waitlist it that person's application lottery number is higher than person A's.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I posted earlier about open houses and how I did not find them useful. I thought talking to parents and researching the school far more useful than an Open House. Miracles happen. I got my kids in our number one choice school. However, I think it's less wise to plan 17 open house visits. Maybe go to your top choice. Definitely go to your safety school open houses. Another poster described the difficulty of keeping your emotions in check during the open houses, and I agree with them. It's hard going to a great school and getting all worked up and excited to send your kid there only to find there are maybe 2 spots available.

I think the best place is edfest because you can talk to the principle, get the literature, ask your questions, and move on. Drive past the school to see if it looks okay. But sometimes you will go to the open houses, emotionally invest in the school by taking a day off from work, see the happy little kids there, only to find out that your little one doesn't have a chance. That is hard. Go to edfest instead.

I agree about open houses. The three that I've been to turned me off so much that I briefly considered home schooling. But everyone is different.

Definitely check out the neighborhood school, even if you think it's some place you'd never consider. A lot of people are surprised. Talk to parents, who are available to share their experiences at nearly every school. I also agree with ranking in order of your true preference. But if you need to get into a school for financial reasons, consider ranking your neighborhood school a little bit higher than the bottom of the list. DCPS wants to put neighborhood families in neighborhood schools, so make it 3 or 4 to ensure that you're in and not on a wait list behind 40 siblings.

A little bit of an exaggeration. Only a few schools have that many siblings on waitlists for PK3.

Anonymous wrote:I would recommend EdFest as well, but if at all possible try to attend without bringing your child.

If you are a working parent who will being doing drop off, I would also recommend taking a morning to commute to the schools you are considering by whatever transportation you'll be using with your child and then heading on to work to see what you'll be experiencing on a daily basis.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I posted earlier about open houses and how I did not find them useful. I thought talking to parents and researching the school far more useful than an Open House. Miracles happen. I got my kids in our number one choice school. However, I think it's less wise to plan 17 open house visits. Maybe go to your top choice. Definitely go to your safety school open houses. Another poster described the difficulty of keeping your emotions in check during the open houses, and I agree with them. It's hard going to a great school and getting all worked up and excited to send your kid there only to find there are maybe 2 spots available.

I think the best place is edfest because you can talk to the principle, get the literature, ask your questions, and move on. Drive past the school to see if it looks okay. But sometimes you will go to the open houses, emotionally invest in the school by taking a day off from work, see the happy little kids there, only to find out that your little one doesn't have a chance. That is hard. Go to edfest instead.

I agree about open houses. The three that I've been to turned me off so much that I briefly considered home schooling. But everyone is different.

Definitely check out the neighborhood school, even if you think it's some place you'd never consider. A lot of people are surprised. Talk to parents, who are available to share their experiences at nearly every school. I also agree with ranking in order of your true preference. But if you need to get into a school for financial reasons, consider ranking your neighborhood school a little bit higher than the bottom of the list. DCPS wants to put neighborhood families in neighborhood schools, so make it 3 or 4 to ensure that you're in and not on a wait list behind 40 siblings.

Anonymous wrote:I posted earlier about open houses and how I did not find them useful. I thought talking to parents and researching the school far more useful than an Open House. Miracles happen. I got my kids in our number one choice school. However, I think it's less wise to plan 17 open house visits. Maybe go to your top choice. Definitely go to your safety school open houses. Another poster described the difficulty of keeping your emotions in check during the open houses, and I agree with them. It's hard going to a great school and getting all worked up and excited to send your kid there only to find there are maybe 2 spots available.

I think the best place is edfest because you can talk to the principle, get the literature, ask your questions, and move on. Drive past the school to see if it looks okay. But sometimes you will go to the open houses, emotionally invest in the school by taking a day off from work, see the happy little kids there, only to find out that your little one doesn't have a chance. That is hard. Go to edfest instead.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Go to the open houses - I felt that was my best source of gut information on each school. Understand that it really is a lottery and that while there's a small chance you can get in somewhere fabulous, you can also be hugely prepared and not get in anywhere.

I did not find the open houses helpful at all. They take up tons of time, and for the hugely popular schools they're a clusterf*ck. Plus many schools don't really care what the huge crowds of prospective kids experience during the open house. I distinctly remember taking a whole day off of work to attend two open houses only to find out at each that there were only going to have room for maybe 5 non sibling spots. Great. So I would go to EdFest to talk to the schools that are hugely popular and get some literature on their teaching style. Then I would attend only the open houses of your "safety" schools. Those will almost certainly have a spot for your kid, and you need to know whether to look at private options or not.

I really wouldn't waste your time too much on the LAMBs and Mundo Verdes because they probably won't have any spots and if you are lucky enough to get in you can take a tour before you accept.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Agree with many of the prior posters.

1. Just in the interests of managing your time and stress, I think it's important to go into the process with a strong fallback plan -- whether it's your in-bound school or a charter that always gets through its waitlist but that you can live with for a year or two, or even deciding that by year x, you'll head for the suburbs. This gives yourself a couple of years until you find your way into a longer term solution -- or even to allow your "safety school" to become your longer term solution. This will let you play the lottery from a position of relative "strength" and safety and avoid devastating yourself if you aren't lucky the first round.

2. Others will disagree, but unless you have a lot of time on your hand and are unusually good at compartmentalizing your feelings, I suggest skipping the open houses and multi-school fairs. From my perspective, having skipped them myself and hearing other parents who spent a lot of time on them, any benefit these events offer are often offset by causing parents to fall in love too soon with "dream" schools that they never even get into, as well as to reject as "unacceptable" schools that you might seem to compare unfavorably due to false comparisons with dream schools (see above), when they might be the school you could get into later. Instead, I found it beneficial to stick to online information that I could more efficiently and objectively rank while keeping at a healthy emotional distance, until after each round of the lottery was over and I could devote a more focused burst of attention on those schools where we had an actual likelihood of admission. Many schools are pretty good at offering last-minute open houses and tours to help low-waitlist-numbered and recently-admitted parents make a decision.

3. Prepare for the long haul, including the prospect of at least one if not two or three moves for your child. I know many parents think this is damaging to kids, but we did it with no apparent ill effects. And even assuming it isn't ideal, that might be the price worth paying in the long run. Also at least prepare for the likelihood of spending summers and even early fall following up with higher demand schools as their waitlists move. If you are prepared for that ahead of time as part of playing the game, you'll be able to handle the stress of it and take advantage of slots that open up late and when waitlists speed up after other families who aren't willing to stick it out and decide to cut bait.

4. Try to remember that as an involved parent who values your child's education, whatever warts or flaws your school might have can be significantly compensated by what you add to their educational experience through being involved, giving them supplemental enrichment, and so on. Just look at test scores for high SES students across the District, who not only outperform high SES students elsewhere in the country, but are consistently and similarly high whether your child is at Janney/Deal /Wilson or at an EOTP charter or DCPS alternative.

Good luck.

We too, did not attend any open houses and I don't regret that decision. For us, commute was a huge deal so we only listed those schools with realistic commutes for our family (can we walk or bike to the school)?