August Birthday. Repeat a grade?

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Apr 14, 2011
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A good number of kids go PG in order to get into more selective schools. A PG year can better prepare them for the transition to college by focusing on developing academic study skills, efficient time management, concentrated SAT/ACT test prep in a somewhat controlled independent co-ed living environment.

Thanks. Learn something new every day. I was only thinking about kids that I know who did that but should have realized the other benefits from it and some kids might actually want/need that year to mature and focus/improve on academics.
 
May 23, 2010
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If needed, a PG or a gap year would be the best bet. Repeating a year in HS will pretty much guarantee that academically selective colleges won't accept you. Also, I know that the sports physical forms here in PA ask if you ever repeated a grade after 7th. I started swimming on my HS (private school) team in 7th grade - perhaps in PA you have six years starting in 7th, but I think most states have a limit on the number of years you can play sports in school.

I had a kid repeat a grade, but that was second grade. She started at a private school that had a birthday cutoff of end of calendar year. When she moved to the public school, her October birthday would have made her the youngest, as the public school cutoff is end of September. The public school had no problem with her entering third grade as their testing showed she was ready for third, but we had her repeat second since she was immature (small too, but that wasn't the main reason).

She is now a HS senior. She did starting acting more mature (as in somewhere in the normal range of maturity) around age 13, but had she spent third grade through middle school as an immature, young-for-grade kid, it would have been difficult socially. Academically, she was bored out of her mind for a few years, but things got better as she got older.

I also have an end of August birthday kid. She always got along well socially with older kids, younger kids - basically anyone. She was still 17 the first week or so of college and she was fine. I don't think she would have benefitted from repeating a grade (she moved from the same private school to the public school, left the private school after fourth grade).

Both my August and October birthday kids play softball. Eldest decided to attend a college without a varsity softball team, though she plays club. She did go through some recruiting as she thought she might want to play. Middle kid (the HS senior) might play in college if it is a DIII school (she has been recruited by a few DIIIs) though the academics come first.

I also should note that my kids are 5'-4" and 5'-5", and 110 lbs at most, so giving them an extra year to grow probably would not have provided any advantage. I don't recall my height in 7th grade, but I know at age 12 I was 60 lbs, so I must have been pretty short. I still made the HS swim team, so getting that extra year of growth isn't always vital. The extra year of experience probably helps though.

My youngest has a late July birthday, so she is one of the younger kids in her grade. She is not a softball player - she is a field hockey player. She is in the right grade socially. I think that repeating a grade really depends upon the kid, but HS is too late to repeat.
 

Strike2

Allergic to BS
Nov 14, 2014
2,044
113
OK I'm not sure if I'm even thinking of this as a possibility but wanted to get opinions anyway.

My daughter is a young high school freshman. I probably should have kept her out of school for another year in kindergarten but that is water under the bridge at this point. She is developing into a good player and I would suspect at some point pretty soon there may be some interest from colleges.

My question is this: Is there anyway to have her repeat a grade in high school to catch up with her peers in terms of age and development? Has anyone done this? I believe she is at a disadvantage as she will be 17 when she graduates and that extra year could make her more valuable as a player.

That ship has sailed. The time to have a kid repeat a grade is Kindergarten - 3rd. My kid is a late-summer birthday as well, and one of the youngest kids in her class. We worried a bit about her ability to perform academically, and there were some rough spots early on, but she's now in MS, and an academic superstar.

She's also a decent ball player, but compounding her young age relative to peers is late puberty. She is now playing with / against kids who are far more physically capable. Not a particularly gifted athlete, she relies on practiced skills and game instinct to hang with some gifted ball players. Despite that, I wonder if she will catch up physically before she's closed out of the game.

In any event, I wouldn't have done anything different; softball is just another game that kids play, and it ends eventually for everyone. Getting the best possible education is, or should be, the first priority. Life-impacting decisions should be made based on that, and not how competitive their kid will be in a youth sport. This is even more true for a sport that offers nothing past college beyond low-paying coaching jobs.
 

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