Thank you for your interest in District of Columbia International School!

Thank you for your interest in applying to District of Columbia International School (DCI)! Founded in 2014, DCI is a high-performing, tuition-free public charter school serving over 1,600 students in grades 6-12.

DCI is open to all DC residents and participates in the citywide public school lottery program, My School DC. Prospective families can only apply to DCI via the lottery; families cannot apply directly to DCI. DCI only accepts applications for grades 6-9.

The lottery application for school year 2025-26 opens December 16, 2024 and the application deadlines are: February 3, 2025 (Grades 9-12) and March 3, 2025 (Grades 6-8). Apply to DCI today!

DCI is an IB for All school and offers advanced language instruction in Chinese, French, and Spanish. We center language learning to support students’ ability to navigate a multilingual world and take pride in being the only public school in the Washington, DC metropolitan area that makes the International Baccalaureate (IB) program accessible to every student through strong support systems. 

There are no prerequisites – no prior IB experience, no minimum GPA, and no minimum language proficiency level – to apply to DCI. When applying, applicants must select a language track. You can apply to one, two, or all three language tracks on your application. To learn more about admissions to DCI, please click here.

Students from our member elementary schools are prioritized in the lottery for admissions when applying in the sixth grade. The DCI member schools are: DC Bilingual PCS, E.W. Stokes Community Freedom PCS, Latin American Montessori Bilingual PCS, Mundo Verde PCS, and Washington Yu Ying PCS. If you are a member school applicant, please make sure to select your member school on the My School DC application along with the appropriate language track. 

Unlike a true feeder pattern where a student has a right to continue to the next school, students attending member schools do not have an automatic right to enroll at DCI following completion of their 5th grade year. Instead, DCI reserves a specified number of seats in our 6th grade for each member school and allocates those seats by way of the My School DC lottery. 

 

Member School Seat Allocation at DCI

DC PCSB Operation Agreement	Washington Yu Ying	LAMB	E.W. Stokes – Spanish	E.W. Stokes – French	Mundo Verde PCS	D.C. Bilingual	Total
	70	50	40		70	50	280

 

We also offer Sibling Preference, which is applicable within the same language track. Please select all applicable preferences when applying.

To learn more about DCI, please join us at a monthly Info Session. You can also hear directly from our Executive Director, Michael Rosskamm, and our amazing students, alumni and staff on what makes DCI so special in this short video. 

We look forward to welcoming you at DCI!