If the school is prosperous and has no trouble filling spaces, then suggesting that a summer birthday child move to JK rather than K is not as suspect. However, if the school has difficulty filling a particular grade(s), you may want to look farther. After being admitted, perhaps you could ask to speak with a current parent who was in a similar situation. That parent may be able to clue you in on particular vacancies in different grade levels in the school or about the school's overall robustness in terms of applicants.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This has been our experience this year. DC1 goes to a big private. We are applying for DC2 for K but child is summer birthday. The deadline has passed to renew contracts, and we renewed for DC1. We got a call late last week from admissions that DC2 would probably be offered a JK spot, that DC2s application was strong but the class make up was such DC2 would be better in JK. So I guess some schools are pretty close to finalizing.

Does anyone else wonder if this sort of thing is really true? Not what OP says, but how the school is framing it. Yes, a summer birthday can mean your child is the youngest in a class and would be better off in the grade below, especially if the school likes an older class. But could it also mean, that given the high tuition, schools are having a harder and harder time filling a JK and that's why you get get the JK spot?

PP here, I wonder the same thing too. DH and I do not know how we will proceed.

But for entry years (pre-K or K), they do not have to wait for renewal contracts to know how many spaces they have. Those are probably decided with some financial aid decisions still to be made.