@GMTplus7, I was wondering if it was easier to get into
Exeter
Andover
Milton
Choate
Hotchkiss
Lawrenceville
Pds
Peddie
Taft
Deerfield
St Pauls
as a reapplicant for 9th (With Financial Aid)
or 10th (With Financial Aid)
Would love it if I could get your opinion among others 
Also, @GMTplus7 do you know where I can get the average ssat scores for 10th grade applicants specifically?
@bluetoon , As you are soliciting opinions, mine would be to repeat the 9th grade. I think that looking at numbers of admissions for the 9th and 10th grade is slightly misleading. Perhaps if you are looking at raw data, it might be easier to get in the 10th grade. My anecdotal experience is that is far easier to get in the 9th grade because there are so many more slots at most of the schools in which you intend to apply. But the factor that has not been weighed when it comes to raw data is preparation. If you have an extra year as a 9th grader and repeat, you are hands down going to be better prepared. Period. You can spend that year–as previous posters have stating–getting used to the school. You might feel more empowered to feel more like a leader in your class or at least more at ease in speaking up (pardon the poor debating humor :-)) and in being yourself. By the time you are a senior you will be in a position to take more advanced classes prior to applying for college. You will be further along in mathematics, a second language, etc.
Additionally, unless you are already old for your class, you will find that there are many of your peers in BS that repeat as well. It is part of the fabric of the schools. So, feel free to ask admissions counselors as others have suggested, but if I were an AO and looking at two equal candidates, I would take the repeater each and every time. Having the conviction to repeat shows that you really are interested in the experience that the BS has to offer. As you get older, if you have fallen in love with your school, you will be grateful for having had the full breadth of opportunities there. And being in the 9th grade class, you will have the lay-of-the-land so to speak, of the school, not just from a physical standpoint, but more importantly, from a social and cultural perspective.
At @bluetoon, it shows wisdom and maturity to weight the two options. Way to go, and best of luck!
@CallieMom Will the schools see that I have already taken 9th and factor that in if I apply for 9th? Also, wouldn’t that hurt my chances?
It’s purely my speculation. But wouldn’t the 10th grade applicants from the generally more competitive self-selected pool?
That and also for the whole 4 years experience and selective opportunities within a bs, both academic and extracurricular, I would apply as a repeating 9th grader. In fact, that’s what my D will do next year if she ends up going to a jbs as a 9th grader this year, instead to a bs.
For me it’s how far you go, and not how fast you get there.
@jwalche I think that I am still a little bit skeptical about applying for 9th, but at the same time I am skeptical about 10th. Yes, there might be more “competition”, however I also feel that the competition from 9th is either on par or more. The only problem is, I am doing well (A Range) and I am not sure that repeating 9th will put me in the place I want to be. With that being said, I am also doubtful of going to 10th as it will be harder to fit in. I would love to know if it would be harder as a reapplicant or 10th Thanks everyone!!!
Btw @jwalche what is a jbs?
A JBS is a junior boarding school, i.e. a boarding middle school.
Pretty much all schools have proportionately more openings for new 9th graders than for new 10th graders.
@bluetoon, jbs is a junior boarding school with terminal 9th grade. D just turned up 13, and would be in the younger side at a bs this year. So she is considering both options.
I see that you are academically strong. But what courses you have taken will matter too, such as what math class did you take at 9th? Will the next level math class often taken by other 9th grade students at the target bs?
D has been homeschooled and grade level means very little to us. What matters is which courses you take and if they provide learning opportunity. If she goes back to a 7th grade classroom, but if the class is small, students are energized to participate, and the teacher gives individual attention and expectation based on her ability, it will be a fine learning environment, possibly better than her college English 1A class this fall where students were mostly on their own in terms of individualized guidance and editing.
D has completed 45+ units at community colleges. She will have 60+ by the Fall. But we figured that she would still be in the place where she wants to be, more or less, after studying target schools’ curriculum and talking to the teachers.
It helped that she is comparably behind in math, and other academic subjects are more open to individualized attention within the same class. For example, she can repeat U.S. history courses year after year and still learn a lot if they are discussion and essay based. She will just choose a different set of topics to research and write in each repetition.
@jwalche I am taking all honors, physics, spanish III, and algebra II
@bluetoon, so you would be taking pre-calculus next year. I heard that it is quite common for freshmen at a top bs. Even all the junior boarding schools that D is applying have honors pre-calculus class for 9th grade students.
Actually, I talked with my teacher and I will be taking Calculus AB next year due to my grades and placement… I could not skip over the summer, so my teacher is allowing that for the summer of 2016 instead
At some schools, such as Exeter, you would have enough advanced math for 4 years even if you are already taking Calculus BC.
@jwalche Thanks!!! This is really helpful information
Hmmm. . . new direction of this thread that I would also like to comment on.
Each and every school will have you take a math placement test. I can think of at least three advanced math students who did not place well on it at Choate and ended up pushing back down a level and repeating a math class. One family/student I know fought it and placed their child back in the high level math (Calc as a 9th grader), only to have this child struggle and earn a “C” for the first term (Choate gives grades for first term 9th). Also, many schools REQUIRE strong SSAT Quant scores (in the 90’s) to be placed in honors sections (not just a good score on the placement test) for both math and science.
Just putting it out there that sometimes math placement, at least in the beginning, is not what you may expect 
And the same is likely to apply to Spanish. All the schools I searched will place based on a placement test and not the name of the previous course. And that’s a good thing, both in math and Spanish. There is no point struggling for a class that you get a low grade and don’t learn a lot.
I am also applying to the schools in your list as a 10th grader, without financial aid. I think you should apply for 10th because I see no reason to repeat ninth, but that’s just my opinion. Some schools do admit a large amount of 10th graders (around 50-60?), while others only admit 1 or 2.
As a BS newbie, it still surprises me how often students are advised to repeat a year and how common it seems to be. Especially since it involves an extra year of tuition! Does anyone have an idea of the percentage of kids in each class that are repeaters or it more common in some schools than others? Just curious…
@bluetoon, you will not be repeating any material you have mastered. If you are ready for Calc BC, for example, that is where you will be placed regardless of whether you enter in 9th or 10th. Most BS administer placement tests prior to or soon after matriculation to determine your course schedule. Repeating a grade at BS does not mean repeating academic material.
@bobtheunicorn Do you know which schools… specifically on the list accept more 9th or 10th?