Why redshirting for kindergarten is a bad idea:

cobrat
Wed, 29 Mar 2017 19:05:38 +0000

My kid went to a top college. In frosh suite, one had turned 18 in late June the summer before starting college, my kid and another had fall birthdays, and the 4th had a birthday in January of their first year in college. Guess which one had trouble being away from home? The one born in June. None of the others did.

Indeed. Some of the most immature undergrads I knew during my undergrad years were older classmates who weren’t only 18, but also those who were 19 or even 21+.

One odd experience I had as a 17 year old college first year was consoling a 19-20 year old first-year who was breaking down and crying uncontrollably because he was homesick and had issues coping living without parental supervision for the first time in his life within the first 3 weeks of the semester.

On the flipside, I had an undergrad classmate a few classes ahead of me who had no problems fitting in among the 20-22+ year old juniors/seniors despite him actually being so young that he was still barely 17 when he GRADUATED from our college with high honors.

Granted, a large part of that was due to his unusual maturity, level of independence, and academic/intellectual ability so far advanced(genuine genius type here) that even the local public school officials in his home area felt forcing him to attend middle/HS with his same-aged peers would be HARMFUL to his social/intellectual development as they’d felt it’d be the equivalent of forcing an advanced college undergrad who’s ready to do graduate level work and as mature as a 25-30 year old to attend kindergarten classes and be bound by greater academic/social restrictions required for 4-5 year old students. .

One ironic result of this was when his older sister started her first year at our college at 18, it was her younger 17 year old college senior brother who was guiding her on her introduction to college life and tips on how to live on her own away from parents.