How to run a lottery to enroll students

When you have more interest than spots available, you can set up a lottery to randomly select students to be enrolled.

Create a lottery to randomly select participants for a session. A lottery can only be applied to sessions that are free and don't require payment.

How it works:

The lottery is created by defining a lottery deadline (date and time). The lottery can be run automatically on a specific date and time or you can run it manually any time after the lottery deadline.

2. Next, select session(s) that are part of the lottery.

3. The sessions that are part of a lottery will have a Join Lottery button.

Families add participants to the sessions by joining the lottery. They may add participants to as many sessions as desired. To be part of the lottery, participants must be entered before the deadline.

4. On the lottery date, the system will randomly select participants for each session. If you choose to Run manually, you will see a button on this screen to run the lottery. Participants will be selected according to these rules:

a. We will iterate through all the lottery entries in a random order one by one.

b. For each lottery entry, we will check to ensure that the participant is not registered for another session that would cause a schedule conflict. If there is a conflict, that participant will not be given a spot in that session.

c. If the lottery selects a participant who has siblings, all siblings who requested a spot in the same session will be given a spot as long as there are enough spots available for all the siblings. Else, this participant and all its siblings will be skipped.

d. A participant can be enrolled in multiple sessions that are part of the lottery as long as there is no scheduling conflict for that participant and all sibling entries are able to be accommodated in that session.

5. Families who were selected by the lottery will receive email confirmation of their registered sessions. Families who did not get selected by the lottery will receive an email saying that they are still on the waitlist.

Lottery Status:

If the lottery deadline has not passed, you will see a status of "Will run automatically" if the lottery was created to run automatically at a specific date and time. After the lottery has been run, the status will be "Completed."

If you have chosen to run the lottery manually, the status link will change to "Run Lottery." Click the link to start the lottery.

To see the number of lottery entries, click on the number in the Sessions column to view the lottery sessions screen.

To run a lottery manually:

After the lottery deadline has passed, you can run a lottery manually. Go to the Lottery screen and click the "Run Lottery" link for the lottery you want to run.

After the lottery has run, you can see the number enrolled on the lottery sessions screen. Click on the number to see the enrolled students.

The following emails are sent before and after the lottery:

When the student is entered into the lottery, the family is sent a confirmation email that includes the lottery date and time.

When the lottery is complete, you will receive an email letting you know that students have been notified by email.

Students who were selected during the lottery will receive an email saying they have a confirmed spot.

Students who were not selected by the lottery will receive an email saying that they will remain on the waitlist. You can invite them off the waitlist if a spot becomes available.