Losing the lottery

Our son entered the lottery to get into PCS, the highly rated charter school in our town.  This is the 4th year that he has entered the lottery and the results are the best so far: he was 20th on a waiting list of 28 for 0 slots in the 10th grade.  It is likely that one or two slots will open up because of students transferring to other schools, but not 20.  So it looks like we will continue in the default public high school next year.  Here is the summary of results:

7th Grade Pilot For 1st Generation to College (6 seats, 18 more wait listed)  25%
7th Grade (50 seats, 216 more wait listed) 18.8%
8th Grade (no seats, 91 wait listed) 0%
9th Grade (no seats, 125 wait listed) 0%
10th Grade (no seats, 28 wait listed) 0%
11th Grade (no seats, 16 wait listed) 0%
No draw for 12th Grade was conducted.

With 56 entering 7th grade out of 290 in the lottery, the odds were almost 1 in 5, better than they’ve been in years.   Of course, if you look at it as 56 getting in out of 550 applicants, there was only a 10.2% chance of success overall.

There is clearly a much larger demand than supply locally for AP-intensive education.  It is a shame that the school district doesn’t start a me-too charter and copy the success.