Apply to some schools for 9th grade, others for 10th?

Prep School Admissions Prep School Parents
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<p>Our son is currently a young 8th grader and he plans to stay at his current school through the end of 9th grade. So a year from now, he could either apply as a 9th grader, seeking entry to a new school at 10th grade, or seeking to repeat 9th grade. Although young, he's excelling academically with kids older than him and he's not a top athlete or anything. So in other words, I don't think there's a strong reason for him to repeat 9th grade either for academic or athletic reasons.</p>

<p>However, we are aware of how competitive some of the very good schools are. We also noticed that 9th grade seems to be a more natural entry year for some schools than others. We were therefore wondering:</p>

<ol>
<li><p>If your child doesn't have a strong opinion either way, does it make any sense to apply to repeat a year, just to improve the chances of getting in at a more competitive school and/or one that views 9th grade as the natural entry year?</p></li>
<li><p>Does it make any sense to apply to some schools for 9th grade and others for 10th?</p></li>
</ol>

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<p>As far as repeating the ninth grade, we did see some definite advantages. My daughter is applying as a repeat 9th grader. She made the decision based on a couple reasons, I agreed because of a few others.</p>

<p>Repeating 9th at a boarding school is not like repeating at most other type schools. My daughter is currently in all honors classes and an AP course at her current public school. She wont have to repeat any of her core classes at boarding school, she can pick up right where she left off regardless of what grade she enters. This means an additional year of classes that interest her most (physics, math, sciences) in a high school setting.</p>

<p>She wont miss out on things offered to freshman at many boarding schools, extra time for adjustment, time management support as well as bonding trips with her classmates. She will also be starting with a much larger group of “new” kids.</p>

<p>And for my daughter who is younger for her grade (no skips, just an early start) will graduate later and start college at 18 instead of 17. This was actually one of my reasons. I feel like looking ahead, the extra year can only be a plus for us.</p>

<p>Ive also recently realized through CC a lot of kids are starting even later, particularly international students. Some freshman are 16!</p>

<p>The downside of course is an extra year of tuition, air fare etc…</p>

<p>Its completely personal of course but these were a few of our reasons.</p>

<p>Now we just hope for acceptance letters :)</p>

<p>As far as applying for both, the only issue I see arising is the SSAT since its scored differently for each grade. Maybe you can request results for each. You can also talk to each individual school and see where they feel your son would fit the best.</p>

<p>edited to say that yes, I believe most kids would have a competitive edge as far as SSAT. They would score higher since they would have an additional school year. But, I dont see how they would anywhere else, they are still the same kid. They can improve their own writing, interviews etc but that is a subjective improvement and can only be compared against how well they would have done the previous year.</p>

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<p>Just a reminder, the SSAT is scored for the grade you are currently IN — NOT the grade for which you are applying :slight_smile: —so you can leave that worry out of the mix.</p>

<p>Generally, you’ll need to decide before you apply to each school, what grade you’re applying for. But if I’m not mistaken, your son’s Jr. BS will have some form of high school guidance and should be able to help you figure out how best to approach it. </p>

<p>As the parent of a young 9th grader myself, I don’t think you should base it on age alone—there will be issues of personal maturity and academic readiness as well, and after 2 years at Jr. BS your son may be more mature than others of his age in the larger BS pool—or not, as the case may be! Conversely, you may want to make sure he’s eligible for certain scholarships or competitions that are based on grade rather than age… there are so many variables that it may take some time to really think about why you are considering a repeat of 9th grade. You may really need to wait a year to see. You can do all your planning with a different approach for each school, if desired. Just remember you will NOT be able to use any common apps for schools where you’re applying for different grades ;-)</p>

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<p>Of course you can! At least for the TABS and SSAT applications, it shouldn’t be a problem.</p>

<p>And you can absolutely apply to some schools for 9th grade and other schools for 10th. (We did this ourselves!) My advice, though, would be to keep him in 9th grade if you can. You will not be doing your son any favors by placing him in a class where he’ll be significantly younger than his classmates. Especially for boys, who tend to mature later, being older is almost always better than being younger.</p>

<p>And you’re correct, admissions to 9th grade will be significantly easier at most schools. By 10th grade, many schools (although not all) are just looking for kids to fill a particular slot - on an athletic team or in an orchestra.</p>

<p>My suggestion: Discuss this question with your child’s interviewer at each school.</p>

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<p>@dodgers… thanks for the clarification. For some reason I thought that the “grade applying for” was in the “front matter” – the part of the application that’s the same for all schools on the common apps like TABS. </p>

<p>Out of curiosity, at what point in the process did you decide which grade to apply to for a particular school, and did that ever change after, say the interview but before app deadline? E.g. originally thought you’d be applying for 10th when you visited in the fall, say but changed to 9th before the January deadline?</p>

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<p>No, no changes of plan, but we were doing everything on a pretty short timeline. (And, to be honest, it took all the brain cells I had just to remember which grade he was supposed to apply to at each school! Any change would have made my head explode . . .)</p>

<p>But you can absolutely change your mind . . . just send the school a note and say you’ve reconsidered and decided to apply for X instead of Y. And, with some schools, you can also say that you’d happily accept an offer to either grade, if the school thinks that one would be a better fit than the other.</p>

<p>The SSAT application is an absolute nightmare for this kind of thing, by the way . . . you can submit a different parent statement for every school, but you have to be oh-so-careful that you don’t make a mistake and send the statement that says “grade 9” to the school where you intended to indicate “grade 10.” Do NOT send these off late at night . . . !!! :D</p>

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<p>Thank you for everyone’s comments on this topic. You’ve made me aware of some factors to take into consideration that I’d never thought about before.</p>

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<p>Dodgers, your comment </p>

<p>“But you can absolutely change your mind . . . just send the school a note and say you’ve reconsidered and decided to apply for X instead of Y. And, with some schools, you can also say that you’d happily accept an offer to either grade, if the school thinks that one would be a better fit than the other.” </p>

<p>is VERY helpful. I have a friend who was wondering just such a thing, and I will be passing this thread on.</p>