My younger DD had a late July birthday. We applied at the earliest opportunity and thought they would just reject her if she wasn’t ready and we could apply the next year so she would be older instead of yonger. Turns out they accepted her and noted how advanced she was at certain skills. She’s legacy at the school and I was fairly certain she would get in that year or the next. Fast forward and now she’s 12 - she’s very academically gifted, but suffers socially - selective mutism and ADHD. I see some kids taking advantage of her kindness. For these reasons I wish we had waited.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm assuming the admissions team would have already told us if they think we should reapply next year for our summer bday kid? Or do they tell you when they reject you in a few weeks

The feedback to your preschool would be "too young."

Only if you are at a connected preschool do you get feedback though. We had a terrible experience a few years ago applying from another state. Our son has a late July birthday and no one even mentioned it as an issue during the entire process. I don't think redshirting is as popular outside of nyc and he was an early reader. Since we were moving to the city, we also didn't have the option of staying on another year at his existing preschool - though if the schools had been upfront during the process, we could have applied to preschools instead. We ended up with nearly 10 rejections despite a near-perfect score on the FLI and what we thought were decent child interviews (covid, so no playdates), but who knows since we had no feedback?

Wow. That’s tough. Did you end up ok

Is your child small? How was their maturity?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm assuming the admissions team would have already told us if they think we should reapply next year for our summer bday kid? Or do they tell you when they reject you in a few weeks

The feedback to your preschool would be "too young."

Only if you are at a connected preschool do you get feedback though. We had a terrible experience a few years ago applying from another state. Our son has a late July birthday and no one even mentioned it as an issue during the entire process. I don't think redshirting is as popular outside of nyc and he was an early reader. Since we were moving to the city, we also didn't have the option of staying on another year at his existing preschool - though if the schools had been upfront during the process, we could have applied to preschools instead. We ended up with nearly 10 rejections despite a near-perfect score on the FLI and what we thought were decent child interviews (covid, so no playdates), but who knows since we had no feedback?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes, in general, TTs and some 2Ts do seem to favor older but I have seen young kids with July or even late August get in for K at various TTs even though they are not siblings. They are in the youngest group but they are not the only ones. There are usually clusters of young summer birthdays. My DS goes to one of the TTs. When he got in K, I saw the birthday spread, and there were 3 boys in his classroom that had July and August bdays (they were not held back). One of them had August bday and he was the youngest but he was so poised and mature. I could not imagine him being held back. I think the school also saw that.

I also know a girl who had a June bday but was held back. She is in one of the TT K but apparently, already bored according to the parents.

My daughter is going to be like their daughter. She was held back for her late August bday. I do worry she will be bored, but we will see!

You can also think of it as your child getting more personalized attention for a year as the oldest (if your school has that ability) with a preschool teacher who can take time to challenge them, give more 1:1 work vs. child trying to keep up in a K classroom as the youngest. I also think of it as a long-game for social maturity. I would so much rather my child feel comfortable/ahead when it comes to teenage dynamics than trying to keep up, rushing to mature like the rest of their friends, etc.

This is why I wanted to give my daughter the gift of time too

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes, in general, TTs and some 2Ts do seem to favor older but I have seen young kids with July or even late August get in for K at various TTs even though they are not siblings. They are in the youngest group but they are not the only ones. There are usually clusters of young summer birthdays. My DS goes to one of the TTs. When he got in K, I saw the birthday spread, and there were 3 boys in his classroom that had July and August bdays (they were not held back). One of them had August bday and he was the youngest but he was so poised and mature. I could not imagine him being held back. I think the school also saw that.

I also know a girl who had a June bday but was held back. She is in one of the TT K but apparently, already bored according to the parents.

My daughter is going to be like their daughter. She was held back for her late August bday. I do worry she will be bored, but we will see!

My daughter's best friend has an August bday, and thus ended up a year behind my daughter who has a spring birthday in ongoing school. I recall that the friend was somewhat bored when she finally started K, and her mom defintiely said that some of the other kids looked/acted/seemed much younger, but it kind of evened out by 1st grade. All of this is to say, don't worry too much if your "old" summer birthday kid is bored at the beginning of Kindergarten. It will even out!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes, in general, TTs and some 2Ts do seem to favor older but I have seen young kids with July or even late August get in for K at various TTs even though they are not siblings. They are in the youngest group but they are not the only ones. There are usually clusters of young summer birthdays. My DS goes to one of the TTs. When he got in K, I saw the birthday spread, and there were 3 boys in his classroom that had July and August bdays (they were not held back). One of them had August bday and he was the youngest but he was so poised and mature. I could not imagine him being held back. I think the school also saw that.

I also know a girl who had a June bday but was held back. She is in one of the TT K but apparently, already bored according to the parents.

My daughter is going to be like their daughter. She was held back for her late August bday. I do worry she will be bored, but we will see!

You can also think of it as your child getting more personalized attention for a year as the oldest (if your school has that ability) with a preschool teacher who can take time to challenge them, give more 1:1 work vs. child trying to keep up in a K classroom as the youngest. I also think of it as a long-game for social maturity. I would so much rather my child feel comfortable/ahead when it comes to teenage dynamics than trying to keep up, rushing to mature like the rest of their friends, etc.

Anonymous wrote:Yes, in general, TTs and some 2Ts do seem to favor older but I have seen young kids with July or even late August get in for K at various TTs even though they are not siblings. They are in the youngest group but they are not the only ones. There are usually clusters of young summer birthdays. My DS goes to one of the TTs. When he got in K, I saw the birthday spread, and there were 3 boys in his classroom that had July and August bdays (they were not held back). One of them had August bday and he was the youngest but he was so poised and mature. I could not imagine him being held back. I think the school also saw that.

I also know a girl who had a June bday but was held back. She is in one of the TT K but apparently, already bored according to the parents.

My daughter is going to be like their daughter. She was held back for her late August bday. I do worry she will be bored, but we will see!

Yes, in general, TTs and some 2Ts do seem to favor older but I have seen young kids with July or even late August get in for K at various TTs even though they are not siblings. They are in the youngest group but they are not the only ones. There are usually clusters of young summer birthdays. My DS goes to one of the TTs. When he got in K, I saw the birthday spread, and there were 3 boys in his classroom that had July and August bdays (they were not held back). One of them had August bday and he was the youngest but he was so poised and mature. I could not imagine him being held back. I think the school also saw that.

I also know a girl who had a June bday but was held back. She is in one of the TT K but apparently, already bored according to the parents.

Anonymous wrote:I'm assuming the admissions team would have already told us if they think we should reapply next year for our summer bday kid? Or do they tell you when they reject you in a few weeks

The feedback to your preschool would be "too young."

So our daughter is a summer birthday (late August, a week before the cutoff date). We applied to schools last year to just see how things went. We applied to all TT all girls schools and co-ed, and a couple of 2T schools.

Every school (except for one) said our child was too young and to apply next year (this year). The one school that I think would have given our daughter an offer wasn’t at the top of our list so we decided to wait another year.


In general all of the TT schools are skewing on the older end. Even summer birthday siblings and legacies were asked to wait a year.

I honestly am happy we applied last year because the schools we really love got to see the growth in our daughter (and even mentioned it in our feedback).

Honestly if you have the time and patience it doesn’t hurt to try.

They can actually program cutoffs into Ravenna if they want to, we had one school do that and cheerfully send us an override code when we wrote them about it and another school not do that and then call us the next week to say our kid was too young.

At any rate they’re perfectly capable of flagging that early if they want to, I assume they do a quick scan of every new application to deal with spam and crazy people and such.

I'm assuming the admissions team would have already told us if they think we should reapply next year for our summer bday kid? Or do they tell you when they reject you in a few weeks

Our top tier girls school takes young July birthdays. Never came up as an issue

Anonymous wrote:When we toured Trinity, the parent leading the tour referred to her March child as the youngest in their class LOL - to give you a sense! TT schools definitely swing older.

We have young June and July birthdays in our grades there. It feels like June is the swing month— could be old or young.