stunned at the amount of parents that hold their kids back in JH, so that they will have an advantage in sports in HS. I've seen kids just drag themselves to school repeating the 8th grade depressed. But more often than not, everyone of these kids ended up being pretty good HS athletes and yes, it was an advantage. Outside of sports I don't think it matters much, but sports is such a big part of High school these days I feel like it wouldn't hurt to give my kid that age edge early on. But I'm not stressing it. I have a year to decide.