Prepare: Lottery Checklist

Use this checklist to prepare for and run a lottery in SchoolMint. We encourage you to run mock lotteries and try things out in your “Sandbox” site. Be sure to verify you are using your sandbox URL (e.g. yourschool.schoolmint2.net), and only take real actions in “Production” (yourschool.schoolmint.net) on the day of your actual lottery. Sandbox will refresh each night at midnight, so you will have plenty of opportunities to test things out before your lottery.

What is covered in this article?

• Confirm your Lottery Configuration and Settings
• Prepare Applications for the Lottery
• Running the Lottery
• Managing the Waitlist

Confirm your Lottery Configuration and Settings

• Verify your Lottery Design
• You can access this by navigating to Settings > Design and Build a Lottery
• Verify the priorities, tiers, and weights within your lottery design
  
  
• Confirm your Calendar Dates
• Navigate to Settings > Set Up Calendars and Dates
• Check Open Enrollment dates - This refers to the range of dates during which your school is accepting applications that will be included in the lottery .
  
  
• Update your Email/Text Message Templates
• These are found under Settings > Manage Text Message and Email Templates
• Update the templates for Make Offer, Publicize Waitlist, Accept Offer, Decline Offer, and Rescind Offer to ensure the notifications communicate proper next steps to parents.
  
  
• Edit your Custom Messages
• You can find these under Settings > Custom Messages
• We recommend updating the Student Dashboard and Log-In message with any important dates and announcements. Parents will accept or decline offers from the Student Dashboard page, which is a great place to catch their eye.

• Review your Decline Reasons
• Look for these under Settings > Manage Discovery and Decline Reasons > Decline Reasons tab
• Enable/Disable decline reasons or add new ones to create a list of options for parents to select should they decline an offer to your school.

Prepare Applications for the Lottery

As you prepare, take the time to review your applications and data to ensure only valid and accurate applications go through your lottery. Use the following reports to assist in your data prep 

• All Siblings report
• Reports > Sibling Applications
• Check this report to review attending and applying siblings
  
  
• Age/Grade Inconsistencies
• Reports > Age/Grade Inconsistencies
• Review this report to see students whose ages are outside of the expected range for the grade to which they are applying.
  
  
• Unconfirmed Addresses
• Reports > Unconfirmed Addresses
• Review this report to see which addresses were unable to be validated to ensure that students submitted their correct home address

• Duplicate Applications
• Reports > Duplicate Applications
• Check the duplicate applications report to ensure each student has only one application for the lottery

• Validate Priorities
• Admissions > Validate Priorities
• Review and validate students’ priorities for the lottery.

For more information, please review our Best Practice Webinar: Lottery Prep - Data Cleanup before your SchoolMint Lottery

Running the Lottery

After all the prep work is complete, it's time to run the lottery! Please review the below checklist for info on running your lottery. Be sure to run a few test lotteries in Sandbox first!

• Set your Open Seats
• Budget your Open Seats by navigating to Admissions > Open Seat Setup
• Set the number of open seats you will give away in the lottery for each grade(NOT your total class size if you have returning students).

• Run the Lottery for Each Grade
• Navigate to the Lottery Dashboard under the Admissions menu
• Run the lottery for each grade

• Review your Lottery Results
• Click on the Lottery Date in the Lottery Dashboard or navigate to Admissions > Lottery Results
• Export the lottery results to keep a record

• Make Offers to Students
• After reviewing the results, head to Admissions > Make Offers
• Click "Make Lottery Results Public" to publicize the waitlist and make offers. This action will trigger the “Publicize Waitlist” and “Make Offer” notifications if you click "Send Offers with Notification" or will simply change their status if you send "Without Notification."

For more info, please review our Best Practice Webinar: Running the Lottery

Managing the Waitlist

After you run the lottery, you can use SchoolMint to automatically track and manage your Waitlist

• Review Pending Offers 
• Find these under Admissions > Manage Offers
• See who has not yet accepted or declined an offer

• Make Offers Off the Waitlist 
• Return to the Make Offers page to see students who are eligible for an offer. When one student declines an offer, the Make Offers page will automatically show the next student from the waitlist to whom you can make an offer.

• Monitor Applications in the Application Dashboard
• Track the movement of applications from Submitted to Offered/Waitlist to Accepted. The graph view will give you a good sense of how close you are to filling out your class

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Still have questions? Email us at [e-mail].