--- "You can call it what ever you want, but the girl is entering college a year after what would be typical. It’s a privilege reserved for the wealthy." ---
It is not a privilege reserved for the wealthy and it is not a reclass. In most cases, the student athlete is asked to do a PG year by the college coach, most of the time it is academic related and most of the time it is done with kids who are committed to the best academic schools. If the student athlete has a commitment from lets say Princeton, Yale, Stanford but needs to pull their grade up a bit most prep schools will take the kid (at least on the boys side) and there is plenty of financial aid available for students who need the help and even for some who are wealthy. It benefits all parties, student, prep school and University. The prep school gets another kid that graduates and goes to a top university, the athlete gets to mature and the college coach get the player that they want. Many of these prep schools have huge endowments so financial aid is generous. The players do not do a PG year in order to get recruited, they are already recruited, they do it so they can mature academically (so the coach can get them through admissions) as well as athletically.
Many of these Boarding Schools want to have competitive athletics as well as competitive academics and they want to place students at the very best Universities, If the coach really wants the player, they have the ability to make it affordable.
