I am currently a sophomore in a German school in Slovakia, Europe, and I am moving to Denver and I am going to be repeating 10th grade since the system is very different and I want to get used to it. In addition I can take AP classes my Sophomore year since my current school is German and doesn’t offer AP’s or Honors, every class is the same level. I want to apply to Phillips Exeter again after getting rejected, but I don’t know if I should repeat the year again, and apply as a 10th grade repeat. On one hand I feel like 2 years is not enough, I want to experience the whole boarding school experience, but then again I’m afraid it would hurt my chances if they see I want to repeat the grade again. I also don’t want to hurt my college application chances. Should I apply to PEA as a repeat 10th grader or 11th grader?
No it won’t hurt your chances. Many kids repeat years during boarding school.
@sgopal2 Yes I know it is common to repeat the grade but will repeating the year twice be normal?
I don’t think it’s a problem do repeat a year once. Twice is a different matter. Yes, I think it could be a problem.
IMHO it will not hurt your chances. There are MANY students who repeat a year - we know several, like yourself, who have attended schools overseas, who are repeating. We also know double repeats - who have repeated a year earlier due to a variety of reasons.
I didn’t know you were repeating 10th grade twice. That puts things into a different perspective. Once you move to Colorado, why don’t you just start at 9th grade instead of 10th? That might make it easier to transition to boarding school. Other option is to do a PG year after you finish high school.
I think I agree with @sgopal2 here, especially the consideration of looking at doing a PG year if you want more than 2 years at BS. I just haven’t heard of anyone taking 10th grade 3 times.
Personally I think that you should forget about a private boarding high school, and complete high school at a normal public school. Then apply to universities. You can live on campus when you get to university.
Life is not a race and we should not be in a hurry to get to the end. However, to me 5 years of high school is plenty.
Unless you have a very compelling reason to ‘double repeat’ and/or an exceptionally talented student, chances a place like PEA or PA would not take on a double repeat. You might just be too old, as some schools have age limits (some Founders Leauge and ISL school have a rule that they don’t take students who would turn 20 their senior year, regardless as to whether or not they are an athlete). I know of someone who repeated a year at BS but got ill and had to repeat that grade when they got back. So, technically they did repeat twice but didn’t complete the grade the second time when they got sick. They were 20 by graduation.
Often schools will be happy to advise you as part of the application process what grade they think would be the best placement for you, and there are cases on CC of schools disagreeing about what grade that is. School A wants you as a sophomore and School B wants you as a junior, for example. So feel free to have these discussions with schools. I think repeating the same grade twice would possibly be frowned upon - another option would be to take summer classes at your future boarding school prior to starting your junior year there so you have some extra time to adjust but after a year at a US high school, I think you should be able to transition just fine. If language skills are a worry, there are summer programs for that specifically. Most schools do take a few new juniors each year and while there are far fewer spots for juniors, there are also far fewer applicants for those grades. With the Covid situation, everything is up in the air so I feel you should apply to junior year and let schools know you are also open to repeating sophomore year if that is an option and let the cards fall where they may and listen to the advice offered by individual schools.