High school ages

[elizabeth_rice]

Hello! I'm writing a story set in the US (FYI, I'm not an American). My main character is a high school student. My question is: if my MC is 15 when he starts high school, when should his birthday be?

For example, say the student's birthday is 26th June 1997 (this is not my MC's birthday). So what grade would this student be starting in 2012? Ninth grade or tenth grade?

I tried to search this on google but the search results vaguely say "it depends when the student was born". Very unhelpful because that's precisely what I want to know.

If this varies from state to state, then I need this information for high schools in Virginia.

Thank you.

PS: should I tag my entry or should I leave that to the mods?

Comments

[chomiji]

It really, really depends on the school system, and there are county schools and city schools (publicly funded) as well as many categories of privately funded schools, and they have their own requirements.

For example, I went to public school in Montgomery County, MD (one of the larger systems in the nation), and you had to be 5 years old during the calendar year that you started kindergarten. December 31 was fine. More than 30 years later, our daughter and our twin niece and nephew all started school in that same county - but now, kindergarteners have to 5 on September 1. So our daughter (born in February) started school at an earlier point than her cousins (born in October) did.

[birke]

Hi there! MCPS FTW! :-D

[chomiji]

\o/

Yay, MoCo!

I grew up in the Rock Creek Forest corner of Chevy Chase, but now we live in Tacky Park.

[birke]

Neat! My family's house is kinda... not quite Garrett Park, and not quite Rockville.

[elizabeth_rice]

Interesting. Thanks for the information.