@ReluctantO'sFan posted:Age or grade???? The older my kids get the more I realize it really doesn't matter. You will get to a point where the funnel is real. Either you develop into a better athlete or you do not. Talent is talent at what ever age you play. If your kid has aspirations to play at the collegiate level, first focus on developing into a varsity HS player. Don't put the cart in front of the horse, so to say. Believe it or not, even HA D3 schools are mainly composed of varsity HS studs. You will get more bang for you buck by having your child sit down and put together a generalized list of schools he is interested in. Then help him narrow it down based on majors. Focus your contact on those schools that are a good fit. If you are part of a decent travel org then by all means utilize their networking abilities. Many parents are unaware that coaches do talk with other coaches. The longer you are in the baseball world, the more you will notice just how small it really is.
Also to note: if your kid ends up playing with his "grade" you might just notice that the majority of his competition will be his "age". You just likely never noticed these late winter/early spring kids. This is because they have never had the luxury of being able to play down.
Again, I appreciate all the feedback! LOVE IT! Down this rabbit hole, HA D3 has always been the most logical fit, as my side of the family are all egghead/ doctorate types and mom's side are all athletes (bro is WS champ from arguably greatest WS of all time). Fortunately he's being followed by an HA D3 that for now seems to be a great fit. Unfortunately, it's not in TX.
I'm from northeast/ midatlantic, grew up and did all schooling up there, but am in north Texas now. Have been here in NTX for almost as long as I was up there. It's blessed me with incredible perspective. As noted in other threads, I too have seen (and may have experienced) the unhealthy extremes of "academic death cage match" up there, and now son the athletic counterpart here (though elements of each are now seemingly and ironically showing up in the other places). Stubbornly holding onto more northeast-centric (and cultural) academic emphasis and not holding son back here in TX has done him no immediate favors. Looking back, the intellectual component emerged much sooner and stole the show. Still, life's not fair, everyone's got challenges, and no one cares. Just trying to buy back some of the time for his physical traits (size, strength, power) to catch up to playing ability. If he were 20-30# heavier with current muscle mass %, I doubt I'd worry about any of this. He's learned to work and compete without the advantage of size and power. The varsity coaches have told him they want to see more strength and power, which he's been working on (controlling what he can control) since late last summer. My perception and intuition tells me he will close the gap enough in next year for his ability to truly shine. The in-between now is admittedly an anxious and insecure place to be.
There are definitely regional differences. We did not find last summer that grade competition was his age. Far from it. Here in (north) TX, our experience has been that more are "held back" than not. You are supposed to play in your graduating year, so those that have been held back are 10-23 months older. Again, this is the majority. The really shrewd parents held back to a maximum of son turning 19 prior to Sept of senior year (to maintain UIL eligibility Sr year, and later enter college as a 20 year (19yr and 11mo) old. An increasing minority have really gone "all in" and held back beyond that, forgoing senior year player eligibility alltogether and banking on getting committed as an underclassman (and entering college as a 21 year old!) . (Thanks Gladwell) This has been discussed ad nauseam and is the crux of the other "player age" thread. Incidentally (and perhaps shamefully) yes, the thought DID cross my mind that if we moved back to northeast now, he'd likely be forced to be held back academically 
But then there's all that (extreme) wokism... 