Alicia's & Katie's ages

[Catlady (Rita Prince Winston)]

--- In HPFGU-OTChatter at y..., "Kelley" <SKTHOMPSON_1 at m...> wrote:
> I was thinking about Angelina--the third week in October still 
> seems early in the school year, to me, to turn 17 (if she is only a
> sixth year in GoF).  Would it be very inaccurate to think the 
> students could turn whatever age,  say 11 for first years, at any 
> time during the first semester and be  admitted as a first year?  
> Angelina being 17 for so much of her sixth year almost makes me 
> feel that she's a year behind...

>From my recollection of past discusssions on this family of lists, 
the Brits among us tend to think it normal and reasonable that the 
first year students are those who turned 11 by September 1st, and 
it's no big deal that Hermione's birthday is September 19th so she's 
46 weeks older than Harry, while the USAmericans among us tend to 
think that it's ridiculous to make a child wait a whole another year 
to start school just because of 19 days!

I'm GLAD that I, with my Nov 7 birthday, was able to start school in 
a district with the cut-off on Dec 1 -- I skipped another year along 
the way and was 16 for my first two months of university -- but no 
matter WHEN the cut-off is, there will be students in the same class 
aged almost a year part: in the case of the district where I started, 
the second grader born Dec 1, 1957 and the first grader born Dec 2, 
1957.