The Hardest Part of Scheduling

The Everest Problem in Scheduling

Climbing from Camp IV of Mt. Everest to its summit is a fraction of the journey. But it is by far the hardest part. Very little oxygen, heavy equipment, fatigued body, brutal temperatures. It is probably 20% of the climb but accounts for 80% of the overall difficulty.

Assigning top choice courses to students works in much the same way. The first 90% gets done in a few minutes, but getting from 90% to 95%, and from 95% to 99% takes hours.

That's one of the things we've seen while building ScheduleX. The last few percentage points of fulfillment require the most effort. With every incremental gain, the problem gets exponentially harder. But that effort is worth it!

Why the Last 5% Matters Most

Every fulfilled course request reaffirms a private school’s value proposition. And every unfulfilled request is a difficult conversation with families. At a school with 300 students and 6 classes each term, 3-5% unfulfillment is 100-180 course requests that couldn’t be accommodated. 

That’s 100-180 messages to families saying “sorry, can you pick a different course?” That’s why the last 5% - the hardest part - is worth it, because this number should be as close to 0 as possible.