Lottery & Waitlist Results

Waitlist Data

There are 11,861 individual students on the My School DC lottery waitlists to attend one or more PK-12 public charter schools in SY2019-20, a 4.8% increase over last year’s 11,317 students and a 22.2% increase from the 9,703 students in SY2017-18. According to DC PCSB staff analysis, waitlists across all public charter schools totaled 27,788 students. This is an increase of 5.9% from 26,237 last year and a 30.0% increase from the SY2017-18 waitlist total of 21,546. This analysis is based on My School DC waitlist data for students who applied to the lottery by the PK-8 deadline of March 1, 2019 and high school deadline of February 1, 2019. Post lottery applicants are added on a rolling basis.

The Demand

  • There continues to be a high level of demand for public charter school seats in grades PK (ages 3 and 4) and kindergarten, with waitlists across public charter schools totaling 11,084, a decrease of 667 since SY2018-19. Since many students are on multiple waiting lists, the total represents an unknown number of duplicates.
  • There were 3,942 students on waitlists for grade 6 for SY2019-20, an increase of 1,224 students, or 45% increase, since SY2018-19.
  • Roughly 67% of applicants on waitlists are waiting for a space at a Tier One public charter school. 40% of public charter school spaces offered are at Tier One schools.
  • This year, 59% of public charter schools had longer waitlists then they did at this time last year.

Resources

  • Waitlist results can be filtered by grade and campus here.  
  • This SY19-20 waitlist data includes families who applied to the lottery by the PK-8 deadline of March 1, 2019 and high school deadline of February 1, 2019. 
  • For the most current information on waitlist lengths, please contact schools directly. 
  • My School DC will post the number of open seats available in May. 

 

There are 11,861 individual students on the My School DC lottery waitlists to attend one or more PK-12 public charter schools in SY2019-20, a 4.8% increase over last year’s 11,317 students and a 22.2% increase from the 9,703 students in SY2017-18.