Looking for advice on school list

Calliemomofgirls
Tue, 01 Nov 2022 15:18:10 +0000

@Siv I think this can be very kid-dependent. When you say he is currently 13, do you mean he turns 14 in April? Or next week? I think if it’s April, then he would be considered by many “a year ahead” but if he turns 14 next week, then he would be considered “on the younger side for his grade.” If he is “a year ahead” then I think schools might pause and want to understand more in order to set him up for success academically and socially. If he is merely “on the younger side for his grade” then I think it’s more something that YOU and your family may want to consider, given that prep schools definitely skew older, as many people repeat.
That said, one of my “on the younger side” daughters joined Mercersburg as a 10th grader (arrived at age 14, but turned 15 that first week), and she did not want to repeat (it was never even a consideration for us or for the school), and she is doing great. She jokes that she has some freshmen friends who are older than she is, but age at prep school can be quite fluid across the grades.
So I guess I would say: if YOU feel like your son is fine socially and academically being definitely on the younger side in his grade (and depending on the birthday, maybe even the very youngest, by 1 year or more), then I think it’s totally fine. But, if he is young enough (like would be 14 most of 10th grade) , it might make the school consider requesting or suggesting a repeat, depending on birthday.
I’ll add very unofficially that I would expect the more intense the schools academics are, the older the students I would expect would skew, so the bigger this issue would be. (again, just my guess). Also, a school that has a scheduled entry point into grades besides 9th would also be a place where I would think younger students would have less of a need to repeat. This is part of why we felt very comfortable with my 10th grader joining Mercersburg – they had 40 spots specifically for new 10th graders, and had 20 spots specifically for new 11th graders. That to me seemed like they expected an influx of new students and would have a way to support them in the transition.
As a mom of a daughter who was a freshman at an academically very intense school (Andover), I can say that when we (briefly) then considered her younger sister (twin of above-mentioned 10th-grade MB student) applying there, I would have 100% held her back and had her repeat. There was no way she could have navigated that socially as a 13 year old freshman. (Andover wasn’t a fit for her for other reasons so we ended up not having to give it much thought.)