<p>Occasionally people ask about whether they (or their teen) should stay back a year. For a slightly different perspective read The Outliers: The Story of Success. I have just started to read it, but the analysis is fascinating and it may convince you to think. He starts by analyzing Canadian Hockey (but Ill bet it is true here too). Interestingly, among Canadian elite hockey (and the NHL):
40% of the players are born between January and March
30% between April and June
20% between July and September
10% between October and December</p>
<p>** So what does this have to do with Education and Prep Schools? ** Just wait. If you have been involved in youth hockey, you know the age cut-off is year-end. So those kids who (at a young age) are a bit older tend to be a bit bigger, a bit more coordinated and end up being chosen for the elite (travel) teams. Through that process they get more coaching, better training, play more games, etc. By the time the physical differences equalize, it is** too late for those in the second half of the year to ever catch up**. He then looks at it with different sports around the world with different age cut-offs, and finds the same pattern. At one psychologist says:
[quote]
In all my years in psychology, I have never run into an effect this large You dont even need to do any statistical analysis. You just look at it.
[/quote]
Okay he hooked me. I have seen it in travel hockey, but then he discusses education .
[Quote]
Its just like hockey. The small initial advantage that the child born in the early part of the year has over the child born at the end of the year persists. It locks children into patterns of achievement and underachievement, encouragement and discouragement, that stretch on and on for years
[/quote]
He discusses how early achievement tests can permanently place kids in a gifted program, where they accelerate ahead of their peers. And it continues to college and past:
[quote]
At four-year colleges in the United States students belonging to the relatively youngest group in their class are underrepresented by about 11.6%. The initial difference in maturity doesnt go away with time. It persists.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Read it. Think about it. If you are on the younger side, staying back or being held back a year may be a really wise decision! I did and have no regrets. Your thoughts?</p>
<p>Thank you Winterset for a thought provoking post. My daughter is applying this year for 9th grade, she was born in January and is coping with the whole process very well. However next year my son will be applying for 2011/12 school year, and he was born in June. He has always excelled at school academicaly, but in other areas of school I see that he is a little different from his peers who have birthdays earlier in the school year, and I have spent some time pondering how he will cope with all this next year.</p>
<p>“At four-year colleges in the United States … students belonging to the relatively youngest group in their class are underrepresented by about 11.6%. The initial difference in maturity doesn’t go away with time. It persists.” </p>
<p>interesting thread…wonder if the US college statistic is regional though…</p>
<p>some states have an October 1st cut off for school while neighboring states have Dec 1st or, even, Dec 31st…</p>
<p>While a July baby, for example may be one of the youngest in class for K-12, they may end up right in the middle in college; wonder how that affects the stats…</p>
<p>We experienced this with both our kids. My son is a July baby, attended a prep school pk-4 through 12th grade. He was tested prior to kindergarten and we were advised to NOT repeat pk-4 because of his IQ. Huge mistake! At 23 years old we are still dealing with the affects of that decision. </p>
<p>My daughter is an August baby and started school as the youngest in her grade. Due to some medical issues, she was taken out of school mid-year in 2nd grade and was homeschooled. When it was time for high school, we decided to keep her home one more year. My daughter was not happy. My son, who was in his 3rd year of college at the time, was adamant that we keep her back. She is a junior now, top 10 in her class, with no regrets. Interestingly, the other kids in the top 10 in her class all have late summer (held back) or early fall birthdays. Only one has a birthday later than Dec. 1st. </p>
<p>The cut-off for kindergarten here is September 1st and it is now quite common for kids with late spring or summer birthdays to be held back. I wish I had known more about this when my son was young, I would have done things differently!</p>
<p>Any gifted program that is actually a gifted program will use individually administered cognitive and achievement tests that are age normed in 2 to 4 month steps for placement. If a program uses a group administered test normed by grade level, it’s probably more of an enrichment program than a gifted program. Pet peeve of mine, people confuse the two (enrichment vs gifted education) very often.</p>
<p>I have heard this book referenced so many times that I suppose I’m finally going to have to read it. :)</p>
<p>All of this may be true for sports, but like anything, must be taken in the context of what is available when looking at academic achievement. My children tend to be the young ones. I was always the young one (very young in college). Having them repeat a year at public school with their lock-step philosophy of teaching, would have been a disaster. My child who has the latest birthday is the one who actually skipped a year. She will (hopefully) repeat that year in BS. </p>
<p>If my son were given the opportunity to repeat at a high quality BS where kids are placed according to their abilities and readiness, he would jump at the chance. But staying back at a run-of-the-mill public school? Never.</p>
<p>I am a huge fan of the book, and I also am actively involved in hockey, as a coach and board member. The whole point of the book is that talent alone is not enough. It takes talent plus opportunity to make it to the top (everyone will have a different definition of “top”). According to my interpretation, the model works well for student athletes who stay back because now you have added a component to the talent part (chances are you may be bigger than some of your peers). Also, coaches may pay more attention to you because of your experience and give you more coaching (like a travel team coach would do). Thus you now have the edge of talent + opportunity. As far as repeating without the athletic part, I think you do have an edge–at first. For the first year of repeating, a child will pick up the material more easily (especially if the courses are the same s/he already took) and perhaps teachers will have higher expectations for that child and thus maybe treat them a little differently than perhaps the child who is more average in that class. However, I believe it is a short term edge as the other kids will catch up with in the year. For example, a girl in my daughter’s honors latin course did very well in the first half of the year. She repeated, and had already taken a similar course. Everyone thought she was so smart. Well, now they are all basically even. From a teacher’s point of view, I would imagine it looks like she isn’t working as hard anymore. I think anyone who goes to bs and takes advantage of all the unique opportunities available, will prove this book’s theory. Another quick example: my daughter is applying for a study progam overseas with her school. If she gets selected, she will definitely have an edge over her peers when she applies to colleges. If she gets selected, she may also be treated more preferentially by her teachers (afterall, she has shown them she respects academics) which will in turn influence her work and grades. That is the point, I believe, of Outliers. Not sure I answered the op question, but it is a fascinating read.</p>
<p>All good points. In my case the public school cut-off was Sept 1st. I was the third, and until boarding school I was always the youngest. Went to bs and discovered I was Still in the youngest half. I was worried that I would be covering the same material again, and was shocked to find the boarding school was well ahead of my public school. </p>
<p>And I agree about staying back in a “lock-step” public school, but boarding school gave me an opportunity without the ego damage. </p>
<p>Obviously not everything can be explained by age and maturity. But it is a Very thought provoking book. You can read a few pages on Amazon. For me it is required. Once a year my wife’s book group invites the husbands and requires us to read their book. I always grumble horribly about it, but look forward to what he is going to say. Read the book. It may challenge some assumptions.</p>
<p>If this is the premise, well yeah, of course. You will find, when looking at talented kids, that there is very often an ability to acheivement gap, but rarely the other way around. </p>
<p>It’s all about finding those opportunities. Athletic opportunities are usually easier to find than academic and both are hard to come by when money is limited. I guess that’s where luck comes in to play.</p>
<p>In terms of one a theoretical perspective on intelligence (amongst competing theories of intelligence) the theory of IQ may have bearing.</p>
<p>IQ=Intelligence Quotient. As originally theorised, the quotient is (Mental Age/Chronological Age) x 100. This original formulation is called the Ratio IQ. Thus a 10 year old with an IQ of 130 will have a Mental Age of 13.</p>
<p>Ratio IQ has been replaced by Deviation IQ which essentially takes the Ratio IQ and fits it to a Normal Distribution. This breaks the strict ratio relationship but the underlying relationship between Mental Age and Chronological Age and IQ remains.</p>
<p>What has IQ and age to do with college admissions when someone with an IQ of 130 will still have and IQ of 130 irrespective of whether he applies to college at 17 or 18? Consider the following.</p>
<p>There is a general correlation between IQ and SAT. Someone with an IQ of 130 (97 percentile) would reasonably be expected to score about 97 percentile in the SAT. But IQ correlates Mental Age with Chronological Age and SAT which is usually taken by 18 year olds does not. This could be an important distinction for college admissions (and SSAT for BS admissions). </p>
<p>Taking Ratio IQ for simple illustrative purpose (and std deviation of 15), at 17, someone with an IQ of 130 has a mental age of 22.1. At 18, someone with the same IQ has a Mental Age of 23.4. At 17 someone with an IQ of 130 has the same Mental Age as an 18 year old with an IQ of 123 (Mental age of 22.1/Chronological age of 18) which is 93 percentile. So someone with an IQ of 130 can expect to score 93 percentile on SAT when taken at 17, and 97 percentile on SAT when taken at 18 (as well as 99 percentile when taken at 19).</p>
<p>This is a simplified view which is open to many objections but it may be of interest nevertheless.</p>
<p>I just finished reading Outliers and I found it fascinating. A friend of mine though suggested that I read Nurture Shock. Supposedly it presents evidence that holding your kindergartener back is not giving them advantage.
I haven’t read Nurture Shock yet but you can find some really good discussions at [NurtureShock</a>, by Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman](<a href=“http://www.nurtureshock.com%5DNurtureShock”>http://www.nurtureshock.com)
Looks like they also had a series of columns for Newsweek and this one talks about holding your kids back:</p>
<p>i read outliers some time ago and it is an absolutely fascinating book. however, its initial chapter on hockey players has largely been de-bunked by reviewers who’ve pointed out that, purposely or not, gladwell’s limited data set led him to a generally incorrect conclusion about birthdate time-of-year impacts for hockey players.</p>
<p>however, outliers is much, much more than that too. as far as i know, most of its other analyses and conclusions stand up to critical review more solidly than does the hockey players one.</p>
<p>My child was born in late Aug, only a few days before Sep 1. It never occured to us we should hold him back for a year. He’s been academically advanced all the time and got bored at school from early on so we actually thought about letting him skip a grade or two, but while he was in his public elementary school we got complaints from his teachers that he lacked “self control” or “self discipline”. So we gave up the skipping grade idea to get him more 'socially mature". And knowing little about education I guess I was pretty harsh on him for not being able to follow the rules/instructions closely. </p>
<p>We have never had that kind of complaint since he was in middle school. His teachers, principle and other adults actually think he’s more mature than most of his peers. When it comes to atheletics, he is not sporty at all - then again it’s never been his strength. He is now in a prep school, not repeating or holding back. He’s been doing fine so far. The effect of him being in a pool with plenty of repeats and older students is yet to be seen.</p>
<p>I don’t know what conclusion to draw from our experience. I actually want to hear your opinions on the possible development issues (particulary in prep school) for a child like mine. Compared with me at least, you all are so very knowledgeable.</p>
<p>After reading The Outliers, I had been seriously considering doing this for my son. He is the youngest in his grade- Sept 30th is the cutoff where we live. If we could send him to a good BS or maybe one of those academies, it might be worth repeating a year but not at a Public school.</p>
<p>My son is a May birthday and is still one of the youngest in his prep school class.
A friend with a June birthday was told they would have been 2nd youngest if they didn’t repeat.<br>
I think there are very good reasons for repeating, both academically and athletically. For boys (not all need this time) added the component of having a few more brain cells rub together and be more organized and it’s an added benefit.</p>
<p>I’ve read the book and the evidence and points are compelling. However, beyond that, I have my own first hand experience. My oldest is going into 9th grade, having been accepted now at a couple of private schools that are also very strong athletically. He is a pretty good athlete and very tall for his age. However, I am seeing the level of athletic competition that he would be walking into as a level above him. Why? Because there is a preponderance of older boys (15 year old freshmen) who are coming in, many from feeder schools that encourage this. It makes a huge difference upfront. While it may very well level out in the later years of high school, by then often the die is cast for who makes the teams (participation is severally culled down after sophomore year).</p>
<p>But besides athletics, I see first hand a big argument for overall maturity. A kid who is a year older is just going to handle himself better in social and judgemental situations. This helps him to navigate the social waters at school better.</p>
<p>Finally, I have one of my three kids who is older relative to his grade. He is flourishing socially and athletically.</p>
<p>None of this is necessarily with respect to academics I should note. But these other components need to be considered in making decisions. I wish Outliers was written when I started this trek. Although my kids are doing well, I would have definitely done it differently. Others have figured this out on their own.</p>
<p>I am an August baby and due to strict regulations when moving was forced to repeat part of the year. I went from top of the class as the youngest in private school to still top of the class as the oldest in public. In my school people through September/October just turned 13. When people find out how old I am (14) they look at me like I’m stupid for still being an 8th grader, those who know how well I do attribute it to my age. It has also isolated me,in my teacher report the year before I was forced by law to partially repeat, she said I had trouble making friends because I was to mature for my age. Now the situation is much worse because not only am I mentally older but also chronologically by up to 14 months than my peers. Just my experience. I very much wish that they would’ve followed my placement test results (averaged out at about 10th grade level with higher reading and lower math) and put me at least in 9th.</p>
<p>I find it interesting that in the article they assume that no learning will take place in the “redshirt” year!</p>
<p>“Elder and Lubotsky couldn’t find any merit in redshirting─waiting a year to educate a child. Because what is more of an enriching intellectual experience for a child than going to school? Our estimates clearly indicate that childrens reading and math abilities increase much more quickly once they begin kindergarten than they would have increased during the same time period if they delayed kindergarten entry, the scholars wrote.”</p>
<p>I’m a January baby so I was fine until I skipped a grade. But since going to public school I have always been the youngest in my class by at least 6 months (because I skipped a grade), but I’m at the top of my class acidemically and I’ve often been told that I am mature for my age. In 7th grade I was put in the GT program which put me a year ahead and I was still at the top of my class. GT in middle school translates to Honors in highschool so now I am taking classes 2 year ahead of where I’m supposed to be. If I had not skipped a grade or been put in GT I would be SO bored, and I would be doing even less work than I am now. Making friends has never been hard for me, but it is hard to not be able to drive until the middle of my junior year, while all my friends are driving now. But that is just my experience.
My question is should I have applied as a repeat sophmore then? Will my young age hurt me?</p>
<p>I started the book about 2 days ago and I’m tearing through it. Usually I’m very slow reading non-fiction. Right now I’m in the scary chapter that dovetails culture with frequency and likelihood of airplane crashes!</p>
<p>Anyway, for our younger daughter, we decided to hold her back. She was clearly destined to be a petite person, and would always be the youngest and smallest in our family. I thought it would be overwhelming if she were also the youngest and smallest in her school class as well. Like many youngest children, she’s probably been babied more and that’s a factor too.</p>
<p>THANK GOODNESS we made that decision because it turned out that she was a bit slow to read and would have fallen far behind if she had started earlier. In fact, a classmate of hers had the same birthday, but a year later, and she ended up repeating a grade. Compounding it all is the fact that her birthday is in May (the school’s cut off was May 31) so she will be way older than other kids if she changes school or when she goes to college. No matter, it’s still better for her. </p>
<p>I do remember someone showing me research that indicated that Fall babies had a harder time in 1st grade and NEVER really caught up. With the way that academics are pushed at lower and lower grades, and even into kindergarten, this could be quite common.</p>
<p>The one drawback is in outside sports leagues. They choose children based on their birth year (trying to avoid scandals like having overage little league pitchers) and if you’re the same birth year as someone in the next highest grade of school, then you have been playing with younger and less skilled kids at school and may have suffered from that.</p>