Anonymous wrote:Started at 4. Graduated at 17. November birthday. Was completely confused and overwhelmed in college. Was immature for 17. College in New England, coming from the south, was too much for me to handle in every way. Had a nervous breakdown at 19, hospitalized, took a year off to live at home and work retail. Returned to graduate.

This was going to happen anyway. You know this right?

I was always the youngest/shortest. I actually really liked it!

4 when I started K, 17 when I graduated. I have a September birthday. DH has a December birthday and started K when he was 4, graduated at 17.

17.

May birthday - I was barely 18 at graduation.

Started at 4. Graduated at 17. November birthday. Was completely confused and overwhelmed in college. Was immature for 17. College in New England, coming from the south, was too much for me to handle in every way. Had a nervous breakdown at 19, hospitalized, took a year off to live at home and work retail. Returned to graduate.

17 with a December birthday. The cut-off date was moved up a few years after I started K at 4. There was a lot of variation in age since parents were not required to send 4 year olds to K so there were 6 year olds in my class as well. I did well academically but I was by far the shortest one in the class for several years (I was short for my age besides being the youngest). Being so short made it hard to keep up with other kids in PE. By the time I got to middle school, my age wasn't much of an issue, though I had to wait a little longer to do things with age restrictions (like driver's license).

Anonymous wrote:I skipped K and just started right in 1st grade at 5. I was at times a full year and a half younger than classmates.

I was a month past my 17th birthday when I graduated HS.

I finished my college classes right before 21, and was a week past my birthday when I walked in my ceremony.

I was always fairly mature for my age, so it wasn't a big deal. I was never made to feel like the baby. It really only affected me for #1 driving and #2 drinking in public.

This is pretty much my story, only I combined 4 years of HS into 3. I graduated at 16, finished college at 20.

Anonymous wrote:
Red shirting not allowed then, for good reason.

I was 17 upon graduation. Would NOT have it any other way. Was able to get B.S., grad school, law school and doctorate out of the way before starting "life" while still young!

I don't know if it was not allowed, but in my area it was very common for kids to "fail" K and have to repeat. It was mostly because the teachers didn't think they were ready or mature enough.

I posted earlier about being 4 when starting K and had a hard time. By 1st grade and up there were always some kids that were K repeaters, usually boys. This became most obvious in middle school. I prefer the parent's choice to redshirt. I had a couple of friends that failed K, they never had the motivational drive to succeed in school as it was set in them pretty early that they weren't "smart" enough. They really just needed an extra year to mature.

So maybe redshirting wasn't as common, but repeating K was and this was almost always because of the teacher not the parent.

Anonymous wrote:June birthday. Graduated at 17 and turned 18 a few days later.

Pretty typical.

Same here

16. Started k at 5. Skipped ninth grade.

14 years old

- Doogie Howser

17

Skipped K, skipped another grade, graduated at 16, no problems.

16. Skipped a grade. Hated being so young.

Not in the US school system.

Started first grade (we had no K year) a couple months shy of my 5th birthday.
Graduated HS 3 months after my 17th.