<p>I’ll be 18 and 1/2 when I start college. I really just think it depends on if you’re ready or not. 17, 18, and 19 year-olds differ only from person to person by my experience. I haven’t seen a huge gap between 17 year-old maturity and 19 year-old maturity. Some people are ready at 17. Some people aren’t ready until 18 or 19. </p>
<p>I don’t think there’s really a certain point where a person suddenly becomes ready for college. I’m pretty sure it’s just a gradual thing that people come to at their own rate.</p>
<p>Both of mine will be 18 and turn nineteen in September of their freshmen years. I have not regretted giving them the extra year at home, but my daughter is READY TO GO NOW.</p>
<p>But socializing skills aren’t necessarily tied to chronological maturity! ;)</p>
<p>D2 will be heading off to college in 16 days(!) and just turned 18 this past week. People assumed we would have held her back from kindergarten but we were confident she could handle the academics at her age. Our concern was her shyness and slowness to warm to new situations. A very wise kindergarten teacher met with her for a few hours and after her evaluation said to send her even though she would be one of the youngest. She explained that her shyness was her temperment and that wasn’t going to change in a year or two. She is still shy but ready to tackle the world. She has a small loyal circle of friends, has demonstrated quiet leadership and even her younger physical maturity has helped obtain an athletic scholarship. I am in the camp that believes it is totally individual.</p>
<p>As I (and many others) said, I truly believe every parent should evaluate every kid individually. But I can give you one example of a potential downside, kayf: Aside from being thoroughly ready (and then some) academically and socially, S1 was already taller than the average second-grader when it was time for him to start kindergarten. He was already running up against a lot of assumptions/expectations that he must be older and therefore should act older. Holding him back would have made that much worse.</p>
<p>As a parent of 4, I have children who fall on all sides of the spectrum- a college graduate who was right in the middle age-wise, a 20 year old who will turn 21 late this year in her SENIOR year of college, and a soon to be college freshman who will turn 19 in September (my youngest is still in high school and is on the older side of the class). The two middle children are not far apart chronologically, yet both are happy and content with how their lives have unfolded. Both have been successful academically and socially. I think it is best to follow your heart, speak to knowledgeable educators, and listen to your child before making a decision as to what is best for him/her. I can honestly say that the child who has always been the youngest in her class has thoroughly enjoyed school every step of the way- she has a very outgoing and confident personality. On the other hand,my younger child, who is also very personable and was one of the eldest in her class, was completely bored by senior year and is now totally ready to flee the nest. I actually tried to advance her in kindergarten but the school had tightened its policy and she was asked to stay in the grade dictated by her birth date. Best of luck making the right decision. I think there is a pretty solid argument for holding a late summer birth date male if he is on the small side, if only to allow him a better chance at making sports teams (if you and your child are so inclined). My kids were all very antsy to start school, so holding them would not have been an option for me.</p>
<p>Two daughters, both just turned 18 when they started college. The older one headed of at exactly the right time. The younger one would have had no trouble starting a year earlier.</p>
<p>(As a really immature male) I started college at 17 … in-state flagship. That was a really unfortunate combination. YMMV.</p>
<p>Son will be 18 yrs 6 mos when he starts college and is on a good pace.</p>
<p>Daughter will be 17 and 11 mos when she starts college, and she has been slightly behind since she started school.</p>
<p>I was 17 and 8 mos when I started college, and although I could have used another year of maturity, I still did well.</p>
<p>If it were valid to base a conclusion on these three data points alone, I’d say it’s better for a kid to be a little older when they enter college.</p>
<p>Half-relevant: The most impressive kids in my undergraduate college were the ones who had enlisted in the military right after high school, then returned to college immediately after being discharged. They worked harder and balanced work and fun better than the other students. That option is definitely NOT for everyone, but it might say something about the value of a few extra years of discipline before going off on one’s own.</p>
<p>One of the funny elements to me, is that I keep telling people that I got over the whole ‘My babies are 18’ milestone ages ago (a year ago really, June birthday) and that by the time my sons graduated I would be saying, “Do you need help carrying that box to the car?” </p>
<p>That’s pretty much how it’s turned out too!! I’m counting down the days until they leave for college. They are READY! But I don’t think they’d have been ready a year ago, so for us the timing has been perfect.</p>
<p>I really think it all depends on the kids. Furthermore, I think it matters way more whether the kid has the maturity to enter the kindergarten or the elementary school rather than whether s/he is mature for the college life years down the road, UNLESS a failure to thrive early on in the grade school had a cascading effects and caused problems all throughout the adolescent period. </p>
<p>Barring the “cascading effect” mentioned above, I don’t see how a kid who is not mature enough to handle college at 18 would have been magically mature enough if s/he waited a year before starting the kindergarten or grade school? I think it has more to do with the kid’s own personality and tendencies. Both of my sons have summer birthdays, and thus definitely on the younger side of their class, though not the youngest. They have classmates who are full year or even 1.5 year ahead of them. They have classmates a few months younger than they are. They seem to get along just fine and I don’t see any pattern. So, back to my belief that it’s really individual. </p>
<p>On the other hand, I see a practical problem of finishing HS a year younger than normal (not even 17 by the summer of HS graduation). Driving is one. Internship is another. Many highly sought after Internship positions may specify 18 year or older. We just went through this. The legal department of the firm objected my son’s internship position since he was still 17 when the internship period started for the rest of the intern corp (June 1). They made a special arrangement so that he could start the first monday after his 18th birthday (later in June). If he birthday was even a month later, it would have been too late.</p>
<p>“Come on, barring the “cascading effect” mentioned above, do you really think a kid who is not mature enough to handle college at 18 would have been magically mature enough if s/he waited a year before starting the kindergarten or grade school?”</p>
<p>I think a year’s delay is a long enough time for many students to become mature enough to handle college though they wouldn’t have been that mature if they had entered a year older. A year is a long time when one is young.</p>
<p>If I hadn’t spent a year in France before starting college I would have turned 17 the first week, as it was I turned 18 which had the advantage (in my eyes at least!) that I was legally old enough to drink. I think I would have been fine starting the year before. My roommate was 17 and I saw no signs of any lack of maturity. I went to a college in a town with good public transportation and didn’t get around to learning to drive until I was 21. I had jobs or grants every summer.</p>
<p>My older son was 18.5 years when he started college. We kicked around the idea of having him graduate from high school early, but my view was that it should come from him not us. While he was not particularly challenged in high school - he didn’t seem to be chomping at the bit to get out. He’s done extremely well in college both socially and academically - so we are happy with how things have turned out. </p>
<p>My younger son has a summer birthday and for many years he seemed to be six months behind the program - but he’s really blossomed in high school. He fits in socially, he has a good set of activities, his grades have been good and he’s done well on APs and other testing. At this point it looks like we made the right decision. We live in a town where very few parents hold back their kids - kindergarten still has a kindergarten curriculum - they haven’t turned it into first grade light.</p>
<p>Both my kids seem to be like Northstarmom’s younger son - they can’t abide the smell or taste of alcohol and as far as I know they’ve never had a drink. Older son is at a nerdy college where I don’t think drinking is a big part of the culture at all, though I am sure there are plenty of kids who do drink.</p>
<p>BTW I *loved *being the youngest in my class in high school. I felt it gave me the year to play before college when I could really enjoy it. The gap year was great preparation for college - from learning a language fluently, to coping with living in a very different environment, to learning how to learn when there were no grades involved. I skipped first grade. I was never noticably smaller or much less developed than my peers. Both my boys got tall early and probably would have been fine too, but they are in a school system where skipping grades is impossible.</p>
<p>I agree with Northstarmom’s sentiment about the gap year. I believe this is an entirely different thing than starting a grade school year later. I could see how a gap year beyond the high school will allow the kid to mature: it’s a qualitatively different experience to be an independent being outside a high school environment.</p>
<p>I"ll be an old 18(almost 19) when i start college. I really wish my parents would have started me in school early(they started me on time) as the majority of my friends are 3-4 grades older than me. If i had started earlier, we would have been peers as opposed to myself being three grades below.</p>
<p>BeKindRewind, it was never a problem for D. But you did remind me of one minor drawback: She was the only kid on her college team who couldn’t sign her own NCAA forms.</p>
<p>my son’s bday is Oct, so he was 17 when he started college. Holding him back to start kindergarten would have been a bad thing. He’d been in preschool full time since he was 14 months old and he was ready academically.</p>
<p>FWIW, he was reading (and not the kind where you sound out words) fluently, by the time he turned 5.</p>
<p>I will never forget when he was barely 2, he asked me when Sesame Street was going to count past 20</p>
<p>Both of my kids were reading fluently by 4. Older S was reading fluently at 3.</p>
<p>Still, that doesn’t mean that both wouldn’t have benefited from starting school later in terms of their maturity. It is, however, hard to find good placements for kids – particularly boys – who are way ahead intellectually, but are immature emotionally, which especially was the case with older S. H and I did the best we could. We remain happy that we didn’t allow a second skip for older S, though older S was angry at us for not allowing him to skip again.</p>
<p>I think my older S would have best been served by home schooling, and having extensive ECs with kids his age. Oh well, we did the best we could…</p>