If you are holding back just to play lacrosse, you are a fool. Academics is another story. If going from a public school to a private school, you will need the extra year to catch up unless you are a very high achiever in the classroom. Look at all the rockstars from the class of 2018 and 2019, most of them are no longer. The holdback arbitrage is complete. Stopped growing, stopped caring, girlfriends, realizing that there is very little lacrosse life after college, etc. I say play up, if you can compete you will probably play in college. I know about the getting hurt issue, size matters, and if you are within the middle of the bell curve, I would let my son play. He also played football and which is more dangerous playing up in lacrosse or on grade in football?
My kids both attend MIAA schools and........you can blame it on covid if you want but..........the kids coming in from (AACO and BCoPS) public school this year are a disaster, behavior wise and academically. 2019 did not seem as bad and Fall 2020 was impossible to track. They will get better as they understand what the expectations are (at least the expectations for the non-standouts, let's be realistic that there are 2+ sets of rules). We have seen one girl and one boy already leave school, both going back to public school. Both were athletes with "expectations."
I don't want to go on record defending holdbacks, but the average lax kid cannot seamlessly bounce from Annapolis MS to St. Mary's, from MoCo PS to Georgetown Prep, or from Balt City / County schools to Gilman, LB etc. Those kids need (and deserve) a fair amount of support to make the transition. That could mean picking a school with a lot of academic support for athletes (BL, McD), providing your kid a ton of extra resources in 9th grade, or............sigh............holding them back.
There's a reason why the prep school alumni generally say that college was easier than HS........it's because HS is made as difficult as possible.
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