<p>Some private schools are accepting students who are repeating one, and now, two years. These students don't graduate high school until they are 20 or 21 years old. For example, Middlesex has a few athletes, and others, who have repeated 2 years. These repeats are for purely "strategic" reasons to try to give their kids an advantage in many areas - even one year at this age is a massive advantage. It seems a bit embarrassing to do this, knowing that these students are two years older than most others in their grades.</p>
<p>Why, exactly, is this a problem that you need to worry about?</p>
<p>This is nothing new. The average age of a freshman hockey player is 20 as most either go to prep school or play jr. pro for a year or two. It’s been that way for a long long time.</p>
<p>I don’t so much care how old college freshman are but I don’t like the trend of much older kids in high school, middle school and elementary. It causes a lot of problems when you start throwing 7-year-olds into kindergarten, you have 10-year-olds in middle school with 15-year-old hormones, and 18-year-olds are hitting their “I’m an adult and I need to get out of here” stage and they are just starting their junior years. I live in a high “red-shirting” district and it’s not pretty.</p>
<p>As for college though, people head in at different ages for different reasons. I personally think the gap year is a great tool for a variety of reasons. If a kid decides to spend a year or two training after high school before going into college… not something I stress about. If that same kid instead was held back in high school a year or two specifically for sports and was taking championship titles and leadership from an age-appropriate kids… I’d be ticked.</p>
<p>Military veterans also enter freshman year of college in their early to mid 20s.</p>
<p>It’s a huge problem, happymom, because people are obviously gaming the system with strategic repeating. There are more and more repeaters, and students who don’t repeat are at a disadvantage in many areas. Obviously, in competing for ever more difficult placements in college, repeaters gain an unfair advantage. As I said, one year at this age is a massive advantage, and two years is beyond comprehension. This is leading to an arms race in repeating at some private schools, leading more kids to repeat. College placement is obviously a pretty big deal, and the parents of repeaters know this, which is exactly why they try to gain an advantage in propping up their students. In trying to achieve in academics, sports, etc., non-repeaters have to compete with kids who are two years older, so yeah, it’s a big problem. There are only so many top spots on teams, other activities. It is also dangerous when 16 year olds are playing middle school football and lacrosse, and 21 year olds are playing high school football and lacrosse, which I have seen plenty of times.</p>
<p>I’ve seen many repeaters in my private school and it’s getting worse. Many have repeated 2 years. It is not fair. If I repeated, it would be ridiculously easy for me to get better grades, get top spots on teams when I compete with kids one or two years younger. Everybody knows who repeats and how they are “gaming” the system, like the earlier post said. This isn’t fair especially when we have to compete for college placement. that’s why repeaters and their parents do it. I think colleges really look down on this</p>
<p>However, CommonApp requires repeat years to be reported, as well as all transcripts starting in 9th grade; and “repeating” before 9th grade is called “being held back” and isn’t likely to be considered favorably by highly selective colleges. So, essentially, they’re compared to their peer group. If they’re being recruited for their sport, it’s one thing and they’re in the “athletic” pool, but they’re not compared to “regular” applicants if they’re academic redshirted. The PG year appears and is weighted.</p>
<p>MYSO, I’m not sure how many are repeating high school years. They are held back earlier and frankly, I’m not sure how much the admissions team would notice age. I’ve got a 16-year-old applying to college and I don’t expect it’s crossed many minds that she’s younger than she should be. When looking at applicants, she’s not in a pile with other 16-year-olds just as those 19-year-olds aren’t in a pile apart from the 17-year-olds. Seems they just go off that transcript and unless there are two senior years reported, I’m not sure admissions would notice.</p>
<p>We’ve never come across a 21-year-old high school student. 19 is normal in D’s senior class with some being pretty close to 20. That alone seems so old.</p>
<p>From the beginning my daughter was the youngest in her class. Most of the kids were a year older, and many 18 months older. I don’t think colleges care that Chris and Alex and Will started Kindergarten when they were 6 and my daughter was 4 1/2, and in fact I think they like their athletes to be older and bigger and heavier. I don’t think they cared back in my day that the nuns held almost all the boys back in third grade because they were immature, or that Geno got his driver’s license in 9th grade because he missed the cut off for K by 3 days, plus was held back in third grade (by the nuns) so turned 16 just a month after I turned 14. Colleges are looking for maturity.</p>
<p>Federal law allows kids to go to high school until they reach 21. Did this make me happy when I was sending my 13.5 year old as a freshman to a school with 19 year old boys? Not really, but it hasn’t been a problem. Virginia did restrict play by students who had reached their 19th birthdays before July 31 of their senior year (don’t know if they still do) and most don’t think that is fair as those decisions may have been made for them before they went to K.</p>
<p>In my daughter’s class, it was not the boys who started K at 6 who were the leaders or the bullies in the class. Most really needed the extra year to mature to be able to be in the classroom with some of the bossiest girls you’ll ever meet, and those girls were more than a year younger (including mine). Someone is always going to be the oldest and someone the youngest. We can only worry about our own children and what is best for them.</p>
<p>Of course my child would have done better on timed tests if she was given more time, if she was a year older and bigger for sports, if she could have taken all her classes over. I didn’t base my decision on that when she started K, and I wish I’d known then what I know now, but we make decisions based on the info available at the time.</p>
<p>“We can only worry about our own children and what is best for them.”</p>
<p>Yes and no. I think there comes a point when we have to draw lines. When your own kid is a week from the deadline (either old or young) then yes, it’s about your own child and what works for them. However, when droves of parents are routinely sending developmentally appropriate 7-year-olds to kindergarten to the point where the children who BELONG there are seen as out of place, then it’s time to look at the whole picture and make decisions accordingly. I mean, this is still public school.</p>
<p>We are getting off topic though. I still don’t have an issue with 20-year-old college freshman. I just hate that my bright, newly 13-year-old who made the 8th grade cut-off fair and square, who needs 8th grade academics has to feel like a total loser in PE where many of the boys are already 15… and DS isn’t even physically awkward. He does great in out-of-school, age-based sports.</p>
<p>If you’re thinking highly selective colleges: yes, they pay attention - was there a PG year (which is a positive for an athlete - if not athlete, was the PG year well-used - in the same way as a gap year is noticed and has to be used well, not just “playing wii till 4 am”) - was the kid held back and for what reason, did the kid accelerate/skip a grade and for what reason…? If your son is 15 or 16 at the time he starts college and has a competitive record, yes it’ll be a positive for him. If your hockey player is 20 and has spent a good practice year before enrolling in college, yes it’ll be a positive for him. CommonApplication requires this, as well as an explanation for each year when the student either skipped or repeated, or gap years or interruptions in schooling of any kind.
However they do not pay attention if your kid started kindergarten at age 4 1/2 or 5 or 5 1/2. </p>
<p>I am talking about the private school kid who strategically repeats 9th grade or later, many of whom have already repeated a grade earlier in k-8. This is the classic private school repeater. There are about 45% of boys (and a growing number of girls) at some private schools who have repeated at least one year. How is it fair to have a 17 or 18 year old sophomores in high school when non-repeaters are 15 years old in the same grade? This is nothing like a situation with a post-grad or gap year student. Strategic repeats are obviously designed to prop up a student to gain an advantage over others in the same grade. It is done for college placement. The repeaters and their motives are obvious to everybody. These students should be entering college already but they find it hard to compete against kids their own age. Selective colleges seem to be drawing the line, and are sifting these situations out. I’ve seen cases where a student was already a 90 percentile or higher student, but the parents repeated the student because they wanted him in the top couple of percent. In sports, there is even more gaming going on.</p>
<p>kids who are age appropriate for their grade have a harder time against repeaters in getting top school spots in sports, academics, etc. Repeaters try to get an advantage against non-repeaters solely because the repeaters are two years older than others in their grade, . The parents of repeaters know this and do all in their power to prop their kids up this way. Therein lies the strategy…everyone knows it. The repeaters should be in, or close to college, but they still compete against high school kids. Selective colleges see this, but there are still some gaps. It is very discouraging for non-repeaters who are crowded out solely because of repeaters who are much older at this age and who game the system.</p>
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<p>There is no possible way to know for sure that the “non-repeaters” were crowded out SOLELY because of the older repeaters. This is a massive assumption unless you’ve seen all the applications and sat in on the relevant admission committees at each school in question. When it comes to admissions at top schools, there are many factors in play including recommendation letters, legacies, essays and ec’s about which you probably have no knowledge. Anytime you think that you know why another kid got into a school and yours didn’t, you are almost certain to be wrong.</p>
<p>How does it change things if a student repeats 10th grade or takes a post grad year? He/she is still 19 when applying as a freshmen to college while your student may only be 17.</p>
<p>My daughter was the youngest, and she was a small athlete. Yes, she would have done better to have repeated a year (which would have put her with her correct age group as she started K at 4) both academically and for her sport. Once she started high school, the option to repeat wasn’t available as she would have been excluded from sports for the last year (you can only play 4 years of high school sports).</p>
<p>I can’t believe there are 45% of kids who have repeated one or more grades before high school. That hasn’t been our experience in any of the 3 high schools my attended, and one was a sports focused catholic high school.</p>