<p>I was held back in 7th grade (failed state test). My original graduation date was 2013, but now is 2014. I currently have a 3.93 GPA (Mostly Honors and AP, Some CP), class rank of 9/850 and am planning ON getting a 1700-1800 on the SAT. Do colleges care if I didn't do so well in middle school and failed a grade?</p>
<p>I doubt it, but what colleges?</p>
<p>Since some colleges completely ignore freshmen year while most others just shrug it off, I’d say any negative events from middle school and before shouldn’t really have much of an effect on your application.</p>
<p>Colleges don’t see anything from that early in school, so they won’t know you’ve been held back. And since your birthday is in May, you were relatively young for your grade anyway.</p>
<p>What happens before freshman year in high school is not considered except that if you take and pass high school level classes in 7th or 8th grade (like in math or language) they can count towards meeting any high school class requirements. Your hold back will not even appear on your transcript.</p>
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<p>Well, colleges will “know” that you’ll be nineteen when entering college and most freshmen are eighteen. Not all, most.</p>
<p>Whether they’ll know or ask as to the *reason<a href=“gap%20year,%20left%20back,%20etc.”>/i</a> is another question. I have no idea what the answer to that is. Others will have to chime in on that.</p>
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<p>A May birthday is almost exactly perfectly right in the middle of the age distribution for each grade. I wouldn’t consider it “young” at all.</p>
<p>That depends on the state you are in. We have been in states where the birthday cut off is December and in another it was the end of August. And in Texas all the boys are held back a year so they are bigger and stronger when they get to high school sports (only joking a little on this).</p>
<p>No they don’t.</p>
<p>Nope unless you state that you did on your app. I don’t even think they care since you succeeded now.</p>
<p>Golf…</p>
<p>Colleges will not know and they will not ask. They will look at his graduation year and his high school transcript and they won’t see any irregularities there. They’ll just see four years in high school. Period. NO raised eyebrows or anything.</p>
<p>Many students are 19 when they started college because their parents started them late for K.</p>
<p>" And in Texas all the boys are held back a year so they are bigger and stronger when they get to high school sports (only joking a little on this)."</p>
<p>Not just Texas. I’m from Calif and parents almost routinely hold their boys back so that they’ll be bigger for sports. Now that I live in the South, I see the same practice.</p>
<p>The practice of holding kids back from kindergarten for a year is called “redshirting”, and it’s done for may reasons (not just sports achievement), particularly in the case of boys, who tend to mature more slowly than girls emotionally, socially and intellectually and often don’t really belong in the same classroom with those girls. It’s quite common these days, as we’ve learned over the years that chronological age shouldn’t be the sole measure of school readiness. Bottom line, OP’s age won’t raise any eyebrows at all.</p>
<p>One more vote: colleges will not know or care about anything that happened in middle school. You will be evaluated solely on your excellent record of achievement in high school.</p>
<p>To the OP: You are worrying for nothing. Your transcript will show you finished high school in four years. Colleges do not look back to see what happened in primary or middle school!</p>
<p>As for holding students back, it is a practice in many affluent areas for parents to hold their kids out of first grade as long as possible. This is called academic redshirting.</p>
<p>Thanks for your responses. BTW ill turn 19 on May 22, my graduation date is May 21st.</p>
<p>Thanks for your responses. BTW ill turn 19 on May 22, 2014. My graduation date is May 21st, 2014.</p>
<p>You won’t be unique and colleges don’t see the middle school transcripts. I would aim higher on the SATs. You seem capable of that with your GPA and course load.</p>
<p>We bucked the holding your kid back trend with DS3, by advancing him a year. He just turned 17 and is a senior so some of his friends in school are actually more than a year older than him. I’m hoping the schools will maybe notice this, but with a billion applications, I doubt that they are paying attention to age at all.</p>