Anyone have experience repeating a grade?

Prep School Admissions
1

<p>I was accepted as a repeat grade, and I already know that it's not uncommon for someone to do this at boarding school. I'm becoming more concerned though with colleges, I don't want it too look bad on my application, and I'm a bit nervous about class rank since everyone is so intelligent. The alternative to going to b.s. as a repeat is staying at my public school though.</p>

<p>Has anyone had any personal experience with grade repetition, and/or college admissions after repeating a grade? (Not repeating for athletic reasons)</p>

2

<p>You could ask them if they have a space in the grade above.</p>

3

<p>Colleges don’t care, really. I’m a college interviewer. My husband is an interviewer for his alma mater and an Adcom for a local university. What we look at is number of courses and rigor. So by repeating you might have an edge because your course work will be a bit more advanced. I know of a number of students who repeated. It doesn’t have the same “stigma” in boarding school that it does in public school.</p>

<p>Repeating in public school means failing and having to repeat courses you took already. Repeating in boarding school means an extra year to mature and to fully explore the course offerings. At boarding school you just go to the classes you’re qualified for - boarding schools, for the most part, don’t group classes by grade.</p>

<p>You’ll be fine. In some ways you’ll be better! :)</p>

4

<p>In my experience, the repeat students have tremendous opportunities to take more advanced classes w/ greater confidence etc. Don’t worry about the college piece, they don’t really care/worry about a repeat when you switch to boarding school. Exie is right on here!</p>

5

<p>My daughter is a repeat 10th grader this year - what a gift it has been for her. If you think you might benefit - you probably will. Can’t see any real downside except to the parent’s pocketbook for the extra year - but to be honest, my daughter was always at the younger end of her previous school, and you could say that spending the money for the extra year allows us to put a 10 year mistake to rights.</p>

6

<p>I know plenty of repeat 9th and 10th graders. Obviously the school you are looking at knows you aren’t quite ready to take on the academic challenges of the next grade, and it also gives you an extra year to mature. If you like the school, there’s nothing wrong with repeating.</p>

7

<p>Umm - @Taftie12 - the reason for repeating is rarely because the person isn’t “ready” for the next grade.</p>

<p>It’s often for other reasons such as being a year younger than usual, or there are more spots available in the repeat grade (10th versus 11th for instance) , or the student wants to extend their time on campus to take full advantage and have more advanced courses on their transcript, or more time to explore some of the various activities, etc.</p>

<p>I know of a number of reasons for why someone would repeat - especially since 11th grade has so few slots available - even at your school :slight_smile: ( which I adore by the way).</p>

8

<p>I’m repeating 11th primarily to take more classes for preparation forcollege and sports</p>

9

<p>Exie, are you sure? Many “repeats” that I know fall into one of these 3 categories:

  1. Applied for sophomore year and the admissions office feels that they would be better suited academically starting out as a freshman
  2. Been recruited for a varsity sport and are not at the right academic level
  3. Gone to a school such as Rumsey Hall that goes up through 9th grade and have been planning on repeating for a while</p>
10

<p>taftie, repeats where, at public school?<br>
It is very rare that boarding school kids repeat because they aren’t “bright” enough. If this were true, they would not have been accepted in the first place.</p>

11

<p>I’m not saying they aren’t bright enough, just that their education would put them at a 9th grade level instead of 10th at a boarding school, especially for kids coming from underprivileged backgrounds.</p>

12

<p>It definitely depends on the school. At Choate, repeating has nothing to do with your intelligence or academic ability. Repeats are often the kids who are able to take the most advanced classes and end up being able to use the extra year to fit in more courses that they are interested in taking. Most people don’t even pay attention to who’s a repeat and who’s not</p>

13

<p>I am going to disagree with you taftie. I am a junior repeat, and a varsity recruit and going in as a junior repeat. I may come from a somewhat underpriveleaged background(full f/a applicant) but does that mean my academic background is not somewhat not on par? I highly doubt that I would have gotten into any school if it was just so because if i am just focused on athletics there would be no need for me or other recruits to consider boarding school. I am an AP/honors student and did well on the SATs, and took most of my core advanced classes such as math, science, history and language and as a new upper I will be just taking advanced classes and electives. While I talked to other repeats it seemed to me they were in the same situation.</p>

<p>Students who lack good grades or academically tend to be more of postgrads and not repeats from my experience with friends who have gone to prep school as repeats and pgs</p>

<p>So before you label repeats i consider checking your facts.</p>

14

<p>@Taftie - I know you meant well. It’s all good. I’m a “Taftie” parent but an Exeter interviewer. </p>

<p>Perhaps,</p>

<p>But more often than not - the reasons for repeating have more to do with maturity than classwork, or are economic in nature.</p>

<p>But your perspective is still valid - there’s a range of reasons why people do them - sometimes they choose - sometimes the school suggests.</p>