Advice on repeating 9th grade at BS

Hello, I have looked through the threads and couldn’t find anything that quite addressed this. (Calling expert parents!)

My 7th grade son is torn (so are we) about whether to finish 9th grade at his current private school and then apply for 9th grade at a well known New England BS, or to apply straight after 8th grade.

He’s an accomplished student and athlete with strong ECs, but young (he will be 13 starting Grade 9, birthday in December) and small for his age (he’s a good squash player, but an extra year of growth would be helpful competitively).

I’ve read different things, but understand that up to 40% of male BS 9th graders at well known BSs are repeating from their original school?

So, just wondering if the combination of him being young and small for his age is a good reason to consider repeating 9th grade.

Thanks in advance for your advice.

Yes, for all the reasons you state, as well as the added maturity that comes with age. Anecdotally, it seemed like there were multiple stories of young for year kids either not getting in or being encouraged to repeat a year. It seems it might improve your son’s chances to repeat a year.

We were in this boat this year. We spoke to one AO who highly encouraged my kiddo to repeat. He wanted him to have the 4 year experience and said why not delay adulthood as long as possible. This was an AO who knew my son was very mature and old for his grade. We met with another AO at a different school who actually knew my son. She gave us a laundry list of reasons why he should apply as a 10. So what did we do? He applied to all schools except the latter as a repeat. He got into that school as a 10 as well as 5 others as a repeat. It actually isn’t a factor right now in trying to decide. It wasn’t as important to him in the end. So my advice, apply if your heart isn’t set on repeating, apply for a first year 9. If he gets waitlisted/rejected, you have gained the experience for he next round. My kiddo was accepted into 2/3 of the school he was waitlisted on the previous year, plus was able to open his eyes to some other schools he didn’t apply to the first time around.

I would reccomend waiting and having him repeat. Everything that you just said above would indicate that it would be a better fit for him to repeat. Maturity (mentally and socially) and size (physically) can really effect how he experiences high school. It is always better to be a little bit older than much younger and feeling less mature and finding it harder to relate to older guys.