@fretfulmother - We asked the AO at every school we toured (12 of them!) if they had a preference or recommendation in terms of repeating. Not one of them said that we should or shouldn’t repeat. They all said that it was up to us. So I really didn’t get the impression that they’re trying to get an extra year of tuition out of us. I do think that between PGs and kids repeating, it’s gotten out of hand in terms of how old these kids are.
CA (specifically the CIF) has a rule that you’re only allowed to compete athletically in a any given sport for 8 consecutive high school semesters. As a result, very few kids repeat at Cate & Thacher, and it shows (in a good way I think!) When we toured some of the larger East Coast schools that have PGs the difference was really obvious to me. DS didn’t seem to care, but he doesn’t play sports that typically recruit PGs.