Let’s be clear. The cutoff in NY and CT is September 1. Always has been. I grew up in NY and now live in CT. These Long Island posters pretending they don’t have holdbacks is a joke. Is it more rampant at younger ages us MD? Yes.
As a poster very accurately stated above, this sport is run by the private schools who by and large want the holdbacks.
The place you don’t see holdbacks? The Public schools buy even that is changing (in CT Darien has been doing it for years). Others are now joining the party by sending their kids to private school for 1 year just to re-enroll them back in the public school a year later - repeating the grade they just finished. If you have $50k and that’s how you want to spend it, go for it.
Fair or unfair? Who cares.
If you are a 28 parent, it doesn’t really matter anymore.
If you have young kids, it does matter up until 8/9th grade and I’m happy they are moving to age verification. | 
