Choosing 13th year prep school for sports instead of college

[toledo]

One of my son's fellow HS graduates has just announced he's going to an "academy" in MA for a 13th year of high school. This is a bright boy with a fair amount of athletic ability (maybe could play for a D3 school). What is he thinking? Is this really going to increase his chances?

[Grejuni]

If you hang out in the prep-school forum like I do, you'll see there are a lot of threads on the topic of repeating even for top students.

Repeating a grade (or doing a postgraduate year) has a lot of defenders over on our forum, and I understand it is usually done for sports.

[StickerShock]

It can. Look at the enormous difference in boys' puberty timing. Add in the large number of parents holding boys back in Kindergarten, which can make the size/strength imbalance even more pronounced. While coaches can see body frame & try to make guesses about how big & strong a kid can become, most coaches would refer to recruit a sure thing.

My own son is the shortest & youngest in his 6th grade class. Many boys are a year and a half older & have sprouted. He's athletic, but certainly not headed for recruitability. But if he were, he'd be exactly the type of kid who would benefit from a 13th year. (Plenty of height/strength among the men in our family. But all have grown quite late.) I doubt we'd ever go down that path, but that's easy to say when his natural athletic gifts are not tempting us with that possibility.

[EMM1]

My S did it. For some kids, it can help them move up the sports ladder (although the the likelihood of that is smaller than many think). In S's case, it enabled him to burnish his academic resume and made him acceptable to one of the most selective LACs in the country. He is competitive there academically in his freshman year. Frankly, don't think he could have hacked it right out of high school even if the coach could have gotten him in.

[my-3-sons]

PG years can be wonderful experiences that really help kids mature both physically and emotionally. They learn how to balance academics (mandatory nightly study hours) with athletic and social commitments. The athletic teams are often a higher quality than would normally be found in a public hs, and PG students' academics include mostly AP and dual enrollment classes. It is also a chance to concentrate on academic weaknesses.

My S just finished a PG year for mostly academic reasons even though he is a very bright kid. He had a serious long term illness his junior year in hs, and we felt that this coupled with a late birthday, left him unprepared to hit the ground running in college. He has matured so much in this past year and his college search morphed in a completely different direction than he or we would have been comfortable with just a year ago. We are all very confident that he is now ready to become a successful college student.

PG years allow kids more time to mature without losing the chance to have a freshmen experience at a 4 yeaar school (if they did a CC year, they would then be transfer students) or lose a year of NCAA athletic eligibility. PG years are not cheap, but they are a great gift to a late bloomer.

[rty456]

FOr totally different reasons -- lack of space in our congressional district. Y son did a 'prep' year at NMMI prior to going to West Point. Wile a unique situation, seeing the kids there made be a big proponent of boys (especially) spending a prpe year. I generally wish our society embraced that . Structure/Academics/ Physical Emotional development

[EMM1]

I want to emphasize that a PG year typically costs as much as a year at a private college.

[dadx]

read Michelle Hernandez's description of how they used to treat PG years in admissions at Dartmouth. ( I am out of date on this, but I recall that she noted that it helped a lot if you did well academically.) For some already good athletes, it can boost you into admittability for major programs.

And for developing athletes, it gives you another year of physical maturity. I agree with the earlier poster who noted how many boys seem to be older these days because their parents have put them through some sort of "family redshirt" program, causing them to have a leg up on their classmates who are younger.

[interesteddad]

It's been going on for ages. Bill Belichick did a post-grad year after high school at Andover before going to Wesleyan to play football and lacrosse.

It's a well honed recruiting mechanism designed to get marginal academic kids into elite colleges. This whole mechanism in part explains why elite college athletic recruiting is so heavily white and affluent.

[kenf1234]

If you can afford it, why not? Even if it doesn't increase his chances to get into any college, he may enjoy it, and he'll almost certainly be better prepared for college when he gets there.

A lot of students suffer their freshman year because they've never been away from home before, never had any kind of independence. Better to grow up a little, then head off to college.

[JHS]

One way or another, a lot of non-white, non-affluent basketball players seem to do it, too. Private schools are often willing to rent a star player or two for a year, and to groom them for college. I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing. Way back in the day, my private school admitted a talented 11th grader on full scholarship (who had already completed 11th grade elsewhere). It was a good deal all around. The kid got eligible for and recruited by a tippy-top, classy program. The school got two city championships (the only ones in its history) and, eventually, a lovely gym. I'm sure they would do it again if the opportunity presented itself.

Does the NCAA still have its rule that you can't keep eligibility more than four seasons after your 19th birthday, unless you were in the military or on a mission? That used to limit the PG phenomenon somewhat.

[vulture3]

A classmate of my eldest child was on the older side for the class to begin with - turned 19 before the traditional high school graduation. Went on to do a year of hs "post grad" in order to meet the requirements for a prestigious opportunity (truly gifted athlete to begin with-being older and physically more mature probably helped). Ultimately did not follow through but decided to attend big state U instead after that post year. Red shirted that first true college year. This athlete was 21 before hitting true college competition with 4 full years of eligibility!

[bessie]

Many suggested this route with my athlete son, who was very opposed to even considering it. He is currently a high division one athlete and doing well in college. Still, I KNOW he would have done better, especially in his sport, if he had taken a year to mature before college as he is often one to five years younger than his competitors who either took a prep school year, started school late in first grade, repeated 8th grade, or a combination thereof. Although not the case for some families, who pay full price to try to give their kids a shot at playing college ball, prep schools have plenty of scholarships to give for athletes. In any case, each family and kid have to decide what is best for them. I wish prep school and gap years were more widely accepted in this country as I think many, not just athletes, could benefit.

[cnp55]

My son did a PG year. He was young for his grade, although a talented athlete. He was recruited by many schools, and actually admitted to an excellent college, but decided to do a PG instead. In the meantime, he was recruited by a higher tier of colleges (measured both academically and athletically). His boarding school year helped him mature academically as well as physically. He took AP and Honors courses at BS and was truly ready for the intensity of D1 athletics and Ivy academics.

Yes it's expensive. However, we looked at it as an insurance policy on doing well for the next four years.

[StickerShock]

Eligibility is a good point. In NJ, kids are only allowed four years of varsity playing time. In NY, kids in middle school can be brought up to the varsity and are allowed six years. It has caused loads of problems when NY families move, or when NY families decide to enroll their kids in a NJ private school. A few years ago, a NJ Catholic school had to forfeit all their wins & gave up the state championship in basketball because a NY player had played varsity at her local h.s. during middle school. If the player & coach had been up front about this, it might have been possible to evaluate the exact amount of playing time the athlete really had in middle school and thus pro rate what eligibility still remained. My D's NJ Catholic school has many NY athletes who have presented their case and have been allowed to continue playing.

I wonder how many other states besides NJ limit varsity eligibility to four years?