On our recent “tour” of schools, I asked how many boys in the current 9th grade class are repeats. The answers ranged from 30-50% of the boys (it’s a MUCH lower % for girls of course) which was higher than I expected! Do these numbers seem valid based on people’s experience here?
That sounds very high in my experience. But my tours were a few years back, and might have been different schools.
There’s a lot of “red shirting” for boys sports (more than girls), and on the other end too. Some of the PG football players certainly were college “men.”
I expected that @preppedparent but the numbers still seemed higher than I had expected. FWIW we asked the admissions officers this question as well as our tour guides and got similar answers.
This subject is covered at Laxpower.com. In a nutshell…this is for rich dads who have the burning need to proclaim their kid plays D1.
Hmmm… I’m not a rich dad and my son doesn’t play lacrosse. DS wants the full 4-year experience, especially since the college process/pressures are starting earlier and earlier. I was really on the fence about it, but I think that it has become a self-fulfilling prophecy (may not the right phrase but whatever). Who wants to be the short, skinny kid in a class of tall athletes a full year older than you? One of our tour guides - the short, skinny, non-athletic kid 
- said that it’s not just athletes who are repeating. This is not a trend that I’m in favor of, so I’m trying to gauge how widespread it is. Granted we’ve only seen 6 schools so far, but the numbers have been fairly consistent.
At my kids’ school, I would say at MOST 20% of the boys were repeating 9th and 5% of the girls.
@skieurope What would your estimate be for your alma mater?
And would you say that of those 20%, most were repeating due to sports @doschicos ? Or other reasons?
@GMC2918 I’d say it would be about 50/50 @GMC2918. Thinking back to my kids’ classmates, I definitely knew some who repeated for athletics but more often then not it was a maturity thing or people wanting the 4 year experience.
And thinking more about it, I think even my estimate of 20% might be high in terms of true repeats of 9th grade. Some of the boys were older because they started kindergarten later to began with and were always old for their grade.
I will say that my kids’ school was academically rigorous and very selective but not a school that was an athletic powerhouse although some kids do go on to college athletics every year.
Thanks @doschicos - I know that in NYC private schools many kids start K a year late if they have a June/July/August birthday. I hadn’t even thought about that contingent.
As an aside to all this, a few AOs mentioned that they are taking fewer new 10th graders, in favor of that “4 year experience”. I’m not sure if this is in response to demand, or something that they’re managing strategically from their end, but I thought it was interesting.
“I’m not sure if this is in response to demand”
Well, at a school that had 8th grade, I wasn’t sure either. So I asked a direct question;
“Are you actually suggesting that my daughter apply as a 8th grade repeat rather than 9th grade because she is a few months younger, even though she has been in college full time and is academically ready, and you said yourself that she would be a “star student” for her visual art?”
Guess what? The answer was a simple “Yes.”
She applied as an 8th grade for the school and wasn’t accepted.
That number sounds very high. Our kids were on the younger side (2 daughters skipped grades) and one son has a late August birthday. None ever suggested they repeat grades to attend Exeter. All started as freshman.
@doschicos I would say approx 15% for boys, 5% for girls. And the 50/50 split for sports matches my experience. Again, in this case, we’re looking at a sample size of 1. 
Also, the concept of redshirting freshman is not exactly new. The below article is from 2005.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/06/us/education/if-at-first-you-dont-succeed-enough.html
These numbers actually seem plausible to me. St Paul’s told us that 35% of their students repeat. it is primarily boys and isn’t just athletes. I would point out that many many kids repeat at later years as well. We know boys at Loomis, Taft, Choate and Andover that went in after 9th grade and have repeated (both tenth and 11th)
Wow @Center that adds a whole new wrinkle - I wasn’t aware of kids repeating while at boarding school, but I guess it makes sense.
I agree that these %s are plausible, since they were corroborated by both the AOs and our tour guides (as well as a random sampling of parents). As someone mentioned earlier, some kids are already old for the grade due to repeating a year when they were younger (usually K). So, between the group that repeats 9th for athletic reasons and the group that is a year older due to an earlier repeat, that can be a large %. Because of that, families/kids are opting to repeat 9th because they just don’t want to be that much younger than their classmates. This is not something suggested or recommended by the school, which every AO that we spoke to was careful to point out (“that decision is up to the family”).
Anyway, based on our initial visits, DS will most likely be repeating 9th.
Even at my suburban public school, there are many kids who are held back. We have a December 1 cut off, but there is a kid in my son’s grade this year (seniors) who moved here after K, repeated K and turned 18 in June before senior year.
One of my sons has a June birthday. He graduated with his class. A friend who is a month younger graduated a year behind, as did 2 other friends with October and November birthdays. Another friend with an October birthday was in the correct grade but more than a year younger than some of his classmates.
My oldest has a July birthday. When he was in K, everyone tried to convince me to hold him back. I refused, in large part because my D is 14 months younger and I felt that having them in the same grade would be psychologically damaging to him.
As an interesting corollary to the holding back athletes story - two of the boys I mentioned above are musicians. The mom of one, who is an only child, said she and her H decided to hold him back when they realized he had musical ability on the theory that being a year ahead would give him a heads (or a hands) up in terms of motor skills and coordination as well as ability to concentrate. It must have worked, he became all state on his instrument and is in college studying performance. His maturity relative to his classmates obviously helped.
The reasons for repeating are many --obviously. The classic rationale is the more mercenary, sports. I feel that this is somewhat out of control but on the other hand it is usually boys. In our public school there was a real problem with girls getting much higher grades than boys in everything. They tend to behave better, have better speaking and writing skills and so on. I actually think it is a huge problem in education. (In fact given the state of our inner cities I think later start times (sleep) and changing the age kids start school would have significant benefits for boys across the board but there are the teachers unions to contend with but I digress) If one is a motivated parent (with resources) one can help these boys with weaker executive function and other issues through tutors, support and the ultimate advocacy-private school. In conclusion, I think boys benefit in many many ways. My youngest started private school in Kindergarten in NYC and thus was a little older so we felt there was no reason to repeat but he is in BS now with many boys in his grade that are repeating the grade.
At SPS, 30% of the current 9th grade class (40% of the boys and 23% of the girls) are older (born prior to 9/1). Very, very few of them are on varsity teams, few are repeats, and many have summer birthdays, which means they may have been held back by parents as early as kindergarten.
One of my son’s birthdays IS 9/1. In a district that we considered moving to, that was the cutoff. A friend in that district has a son two weeks older than mine. She held hers back and he graduated HS at almost 19 while my son was a couple months shy of 18.
@GoatMama yes. In the NYC private schools they are essentially starting later across the board. The schools will even advise parents to reapply after another year. if they deem them too young. They want them older. We were faced with the repeat question at a few schools for sports related reasons. (We did not end up completing the applications for those schools)