Oops. Would you have preferred to not know your fate for this year until late October? That is the only difference, statistically, between the systems.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm always interested in all of the spin in March and April over the lottery waitlists, as it has been my personal experience over the last eight years that most folks land somewhere within the public school system. Maybe not their first choice, but somewhere acceptable. I know several families who have moved year to year from amongst multiple highly regarded charters and neighborhood schools. Does all of the spring angst really play out in the reality of school starting in September? Were people really completely shut out?

We were completely shut out.

Next year put down your IB school. Problem solved.

I did put down my IB school. I was in the lottery for PK3. I had the worst lottery number. I was in the 20s at IB, and in the hundreds at more desirable schools. Still waiting to hear from any school.

Eyeroll right back at you. You obviously live in a catchment for a great school, so you'll get in by K at the latest. It's hard to feel sympathy for your "shutout."

Really? Because I feel genuine sympathy, being in the same boat. It's hard to know that your odds of getting in next year have greatly reduced, as the number of available spots are greatly reduced from PreK3 to PreK4. It's hard knowing that if you don't get in anywhere in PreK3 or PreK4 you have to choose between your IB school or uprooting your entire family and selling your family home. The home you raised your children in. It's a cold-hearted person that doesn't feel sympathy for someone in the 12% who got shut out entirely in this sh***y system.

Would you havknow your fate for this year until mid-October?e preferred to not

We got into our 3rd choice. We got more familiar with the school and loved their vision and the teachers and parents are so far so good. Our 2nd choice called and we declined so we will not be playing the lottery for a while but need to look into middle school options maybe when that time comes.

What is the "switching" problem? I have no desire to read 25 pages to see if this term is defined. It was not in the cited page.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm always interested in all of the spin in March and April over the lottery waitlists, as it has been my personal experience over the last eight years that most folks land somewhere within the public school system. Maybe not their first choice, but somewhere acceptable. I know several families who have moved year to year from amongst multiple highly regarded charters and neighborhood schools. Does all of the spring angst really play out in the reality of school starting in September? Were people really completely shut out?

We were completely shut out.

Next year put down your IB school. Problem solved.

I did put down my IB school. I was in the lottery for PK3. I had the worst lottery number. I was in the 20s at IB, and in the hundreds at more desirable schools. Still waiting to hear from any school.

Eyeroll right back at you. You obviously live in a catchment for a great school, so you'll get in by K at the latest. It's hard to feel sympathy for your "shutout."

Really? Because I feel genuine sympathy, being in the same boat. It's hard to know that your odds of getting in next year have greatly reduced, as the number of available spots are greatly reduced from PreK3 to PreK4. It's hard knowing that if you don't get in anywhere in PreK3 or PreK4 you have to choose between your IB school or uprooting your entire family and selling your family home. The home you raised your children in. It's a cold-hearted person that doesn't feel sympathy for someone in the 12% who got shut out entirely in this sh***y system.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm always interested in all of the spin in March and April over the lottery waitlists, as it has been my personal experience over the last eight years that most folks land somewhere within the public school system. Maybe not their first choice, but somewhere acceptable. I know several families who have moved year to year from amongst multiple highly regarded charters and neighborhood schools. Does all of the spring angst really play out in the reality of school starting in September? Were people really completely shut out?

We were completely shut out.

Next year put down your IB school. Problem solved.

I did put down my IB school. I was in the lottery for PK3. I had the worst lottery number. I was in the 20s at IB, and in the hundreds at more desirable schools. Still waiting to hear from any school.

Eyeroll right back at you. You obviously live in a catchment for a great school, so you'll get in by K at the latest. It's hard to feel sympathy for your "shutout."

LOL! First, I should have said I was in the teens, not 20s, for my IB. My IB is Peabody, which, if you've ever seen the megathread in this forum, is only good through K. So, eyeroll back at you?

+ 1 there are a number of schools EOTP that are in high demand for the PK years but not for upper grades, so if you are IB and get shut out in the PK3 lottery, it really sucks. You basically get no advantage from buying/renting in that school district. Whereas if you get in, at least you get a few years and maybe you get comfortable and stay. It's better for the school too, if more IB people enter at PK3 and have a chance to contribute to the school.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm always interested in all of the spin in March and April over the lottery waitlists, as it has been my personal experience over the last eight years that most folks land somewhere within the public school system. Maybe not their first choice, but somewhere acceptable. I know several families who have moved year to year from amongst multiple highly regarded charters and neighborhood schools. Does all of the spring angst really play out in the reality of school starting in September? Were people really completely shut out?

We were completely shut out.

Next year put down your IB school. Problem solved.

I did put down my IB school. I was in the lottery for PK3. I had the worst lottery number. I was in the 20s at IB, and in the hundreds at more desirable schools. Still waiting to hear from any school.

Eyeroll right back at you. You obviously live in a catchment for a great school, so you'll get in by K at the latest. It's hard to feel sympathy for your "shutout."

LOL! First, I should have said I was in the teens, not 20s, for my IB. My IB is Peabody, which, if you've ever seen the megathread in this forum, is only good through K. So, eyeroll back at you?

But there are schools nearby to you that had open PK3 seats, right after the 1st round - didn't both Miner and Walker-Jones have slots? Did you do the second round?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Huh. Interesting. I played the common lottery and it worked for me, but I didn't know I got one number that predicted my results in all 12 schools. I thought that I was limited to 12 schools (so I couldn't employ the "scattershot" methodology that parents used to use) but that each lottery number was individually assigned to each school, with the only difference being that if I got into choice #3, I was eliminated from schools 4-12. From what you are all saying, it seems like if I got a crappy lottery number from choice #1, that somehow affected my lottery numbers for the other schools too - is that right?

You only got one randomly assigned lottery number for the whole lottery. If you got a great number, not only would you certainly get in to at least one of your 12 choices, it's likely you'd get into a top choice (preferences figure in too i.e. sibling and IB). If you got a middling number, it depends on which schools you listed and what's happening in front of you. If you got a single bad number, you were shut out all around, even from your IB school if you were applying for PS or PK.

There is a way that the common lottery could run separate lotteries within the common lottery, i.e. "holding" separate lotteries for all the applicants to each school. Not sure that was attempted or whether there are blocks to that, but it can be done so that whichever 12 schools you apply to, you have 12 separate chances at a good number. That would address the concerns of those who preferred the old system.

But it would be much more confusing, would be very difficult to coordinate, and it would - as explained above - result in the exact same chances of getting into one of your top picks.

And I think that running "separate" lotteries for each school would eliminate the "switching" option built into the unified lottery. This was gone over in detail in a loooong thread earlier this year. Thus far I haven't read a single comment here that wasn't made in that thread. The last page of the thread had a good breakdown that seemed to pretty much end the discussion because it clarified most of the questions:

http://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/360/349790.page

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm always interested in all of the spin in March and April over the lottery waitlists, as it has been my personal experience over the last eight years that most folks land somewhere within the public school system. Maybe not their first choice, but somewhere acceptable. I know several families who have moved year to year from amongst multiple highly regarded charters and neighborhood schools. Does all of the spring angst really play out in the reality of school starting in September? Were people really completely shut out?

We were completely shut out.

Next year put down your IB school. Problem solved.

I did put down my IB school. I was in the lottery for PK3. I had the worst lottery number. I was in the 20s at IB, and in the hundreds at more desirable schools. Still waiting to hear from any school.

Eyeroll right back at you. You obviously live in a catchment for a great school, so you'll get in by K at the latest. It's hard to feel sympathy for your "shutout."

LOL! First, I should have said I was in the teens, not 20s, for my IB. My IB is Peabody, which, if you've ever seen the megathread in this forum, is only good through K. So, eyeroll back at you?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think there's truth to two of the PPs - in the old system, one bad draw didn't knock you out of the game (that absolutely happened this time around with the unified lottery. My Kindergartener had numbers in the hundreds for each of her schools) so you had better odds taking individual chances at each school. BUT there really has been an explosion of people looking for spots so it's obvious that a greater number of people looking for a roughly similar number of spots (the opening of new schools isn't pacing growth) is going to cause headaches.
I'm not thrilled with where we landed but we'll see how it goes.

No, you didn't. It's painful how little DCUMers understand about statistics.

DP, ok, so explain it. If you have 12 schools, school 1, school 2, school 3, etc, and 1000 people applying for spots at all 12 schools, explain how the Common Lottery giving each person one single lottery number that is the biggest determining factor in how much "choice" you get or how good a choice you get, somehow gives ALL 1000 people the exact same odds of getting into even ONE of the 12 schools, than 12 SEPARATE lotteries where each of the 1000 gets a new chance at a great number?

Please explain that, because I don't understand you saying you didn't have better odds with 12 separate lotteries either.

NP here. Because you still have the same number of seats at desirable schools. If you only have 200 non-sibling seats in PK-3 for schools that these 1000 people are excited about, there are still only going to be 200 winning families and 800 losing families no matter how you order the lottery. There have been several threads trying to explain this same point to people over and over again.

+1

I was one of the ones trying to explain this in a thread during the lottery process and I gave up.

This is a classic problem wherein people observe a phenomenon (decreased chances of getting a good spot) but they fail to correctly identify the explanation for what they are observing.

There are reasons why people did, in fact, have better odds under the old process:

1) There were fewer contenders relative to spots, due to demographics, less widespread awareness of options, less psychological expectation of free daycare before K, and less IB interest in many DCPS schools (opening of new charters and expansion of schools may have slowed this trend but as far as I can tell from DME/DCPS info the annual increase in spot-seekers exceeds the increase in desirable spots).

2) You could apply to more than 12 schools under the old system, which doesn't statistically improve your odds, but could increase your relative odds in the old system by creating the possibility of selection error in the new system. In the old system, if you applied to all schools in existence then you removed the possibility of error. Under the new system, it is quite possible to make errors in selecting your 12 schools. This is another thing I tried to explain on DCUM during the lottery. Errors include failure to research prior year waiting lists and safety schools, failure to understand preferences and how they apply to you for a given school or set of schools, failure to list IB for PK years, etc.

But if the same number of people apply to the same number of total desirable spots in the same year, and everyone applies to no more than 12 schools, and people do not make selection errors in the new process (that last one is a big one) then it matters not which of these two lottery systems you use (this is the statistics part that I refuse to try to explain anymore on DCUM). And the new lottery is superior for the reasons explained above: it gives better matches, earlier.

Sorry, I should have explained this better, in bold. The reason it doesn't improve your odds to apply to more than 12 schools is that in both the old process and the new process, there are under-enrolled schools. So we know there is no shortage of spots, just desirable spots. If there was an actual shortage of total spots, then applying to more than 12 schools could increase your odds, especially if the open spots were distributed evenly across all schools in the lottery (as opposed to reality, in which it is desirable spots that matter, not total spots, and the desirable spots are concentrated in a small number of schools).

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Huh. Interesting. I played the common lottery and it worked for me, but I didn't know I got one number that predicted my results in all 12 schools. I thought that I was limited to 12 schools (so I couldn't employ the "scattershot" methodology that parents used to use) but that each lottery number was individually assigned to each school, with the only difference being that if I got into choice #3, I was eliminated from schools 4-12. From what you are all saying, it seems like if I got a crappy lottery number from choice #1, that somehow affected my lottery numbers for the other schools too - is that right?

You only got one randomly assigned lottery number for the whole lottery. If you got a great number, not only would you certainly get in to at least one of your 12 choices, it's likely you'd get into a top choice (preferences figure in too i.e. sibling and IB). If you got a middling number, it depends on which schools you listed and what's happening in front of you. If you got a single bad number, you were shut out all around, even from your IB school if you were applying for PS or PK.

There is a way that the common lottery could run separate lotteries within the common lottery, i.e. "holding" separate lotteries for all the applicants to each school. Not sure that was attempted or whether there are blocks to that, but it can be done so that whichever 12 schools you apply to, you have 12 separate chances at a good number. That would address the concerns of those who preferred the old system.

But it would be much more confusing, would be very difficult to coordinate, and it would - as explained above - result in the exact same chances of getting into one of your top picks.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think there's truth to two of the PPs - in the old system, one bad draw didn't knock you out of the game (that absolutely happened this time around with the unified lottery. My Kindergartener had numbers in the hundreds for each of her schools) so you had better odds taking individual chances at each school. BUT there really has been an explosion of people looking for spots so it's obvious that a greater number of people looking for a roughly similar number of spots (the opening of new schools isn't pacing growth) is going to cause headaches.
I'm not thrilled with where we landed but we'll see how it goes.

No, you didn't. It's painful how little DCUMers understand about statistics.

DP, ok, so explain it. If you have 12 schools, school 1, school 2, school 3, etc, and 1000 people applying for spots at all 12 schools, explain how the Common Lottery giving each person one single lottery number that is the biggest determining factor in how much "choice" you get or how good a choice you get, somehow gives ALL 1000 people the exact same odds of getting into even ONE of the 12 schools, than 12 SEPARATE lotteries where each of the 1000 gets a new chance at a great number?

Please explain that, because I don't understand you saying you didn't have better odds with 12 separate lotteries either.

NP here. Because you still have the same number of seats at desirable schools. If you only have 200 non-sibling seats in PK-3 for schools that these 1000 people are excited about, there are still only going to be 200 winning families and 800 losing families no matter how you order the lottery. There have been several threads trying to explain this same point to people over and over again.

+1

I was one of the ones trying to explain this in a thread during the lottery process and I gave up.

This is a classic problem wherein people observe a phenomenon (decreased chances of getting a good spot) but they fail to correctly identify the explanation for what they are observing.

There are reasons why people did, in fact, have better odds under the old process:

1) There were fewer contenders relative to spots, due to demographics, less widespread awareness of options, less psychological expectation of free daycare before K, and less IB interest in many DCPS schools (opening of new charters and expansion of schools may have slowed this trend but as far as I can tell from DME/DCPS info the annual increase in spot-seekers exceeds the increase in desirable spots).

2) You could apply to more than 12 schools under the old system, which doesn't statistically improve your odds, but could increase your relative odds in the old system by creating the possibility of selection error in the new system. In the old system, if you applied to all schools in existence then you removed the possibility of error. Under the new system, it is quite possible to make errors in selecting your 12 schools. This is another thing I tried to explain on DCUM during the lottery. Errors include failure to research prior year waiting lists and safety schools, failure to understand preferences and how they apply to you for a given school or set of schools, failure to list IB for PK years, etc.

But if the same number of people apply to the same number of total desirable spots in the same year, and everyone applies to no more than 12 schools, and people do not make selection errors in the new process (that last one is a big one) then it matters not which of these two lottery systems you use (this is the statistics part that I refuse to try to explain anymore on DCUM). And the new lottery is superior for the reasons explained above: it gives better matches, earlier.

Anonymous wrote:Huh. Interesting. I played the common lottery and it worked for me, but I didn't know I got one number that predicted my results in all 12 schools. I thought that I was limited to 12 schools (so I couldn't employ the "scattershot" methodology that parents used to use) but that each lottery number was individually assigned to each school, with the only difference being that if I got into choice #3, I was eliminated from schools 4-12. From what you are all saying, it seems like if I got a crappy lottery number from choice #1, that somehow affected my lottery numbers for the other schools too - is that right?

You only got one randomly assigned lottery number for the whole lottery. If you got a great number, not only would you certainly get in to at least one of your 12 choices, it's likely you'd get into a top choice (preferences figure in too i.e. sibling and IB). If you got a middling number, it depends on which schools you listed and what's happening in front of you. If you got a single bad number, you were shut out all around, even from your IB school if you were applying for PS or PK.

There is a way that the common lottery could run separate lotteries within the common lottery, i.e. "holding" separate lotteries for all the applicants to each school. Not sure that was attempted or whether there are blocks to that, but it can be done so that whichever 12 schools you apply to, you have 12 separate chances at a good number. That would address the concerns of those who preferred the old system.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We got nothing in the first round or the second round, so we're sticking with daycare for another year. Can't help but think that the previous system would have been better for us.

shinning stars has openings. families there love what happens the classroom. I'd try it instead of daycare.

The same Shining Stars that has been unforthcoming to parents about where they will actually be this year and has moved locations twice? The same one that had no location one week before school started? No thank you.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Okay, you win, statistics moron. Let's go back to a system in which everyone has an equal chance to land a desirable spot, but the spots they land are not desirable to them. Great plan.

Childish namecalling aside, another issue you clearly don't understand is the difference between working to improve the overall number of quality spots available (which is essential obviously in DC), and just pointing out basic facts about the pluses and minuses about different application/lottery systems. Those are two totally different issues, even though the overwhelming demand compared to the small supply is a root cause for both.

You're too petty to pay attention to the fact that it's possible to both be in favor of the common lottery (which I am), AND to recognize that there is a drawback, namely that actually individual odds of getting in to one of the better schools are reduced if there's one draw. Good luck with just spinning around on namecalling and oversimplication. Hopefully others are actually able to recognize the pluses and minuses and keep working to improve BOTH the number of quality school spots available (by improving the schools we already have and opening new schools where necessary, both complex but crucial endeavors) as well as by improving the application system each year.

THANK YOU! Of course those of us who are smart would never call PP a "moron" no matter what the evidence might suggest.

You do realize I'm reading this and attempting to engage in a discussion based on my perceptions, prior discussions, anecdotal scenarios and my apparently very limited grasp of statistics, right? How does being snarky and personally attacking me (with your "evidence" and all) contribute to this? And, no, I'm not new to DCUM and have seen many a thread devolve into this crap. It's ridiculous.

I'm also in favor of the common lottery and see its benefit clearly. I also know that the prior system had advantages, which I've explained based on my experience. We did not take the spot offered to us because changing circumstances made the logistics a little more difficult than anticipated and because we had the option to remain in our preschool another year. Entering the lottery this year was a totally different experience and we got shut out. I'm not bitching, I'm not name calling, I'm not pointing fingers. Someone has to be last. Just knock off the bitchiness for a second or two and try to contribute.