Here's one that still messes old schoolers up, including myself. But I always thought the correct age to graduate from high school was 17. But a brother who grew up with us, born in the month of Sept., says it's always been 18. He's about 3 years older than me. I told him he must have stayed back...lol. But now I see we were both right. As a child growing up in DC and Maryland, I was told that the DMV had changed the age and date a child could start kindergarden. At first, you had to be 5 before the 1st of Jan. If not, you had to wait until Sept, the beginning of the next school year, to start kindergarten.
Then by the mid 60's, they changed the law. Now you could start kindergarten on your 4th birthday, as long as you were 4 before Jan. 1st of that school year, which would had already started on Sept. I was one of those children that was able to start kindergarten on their 4th birthday. I believe it's been that way since. So apparently, our neighbor who grew up with us, had already started school before that new law went into effect, when you had to wait until you were 5 to start kindergarten, and like I said, your birthday had to come before Jan 1st. Therefore, most students his age, born in the same month he was, started the 12th grade at 18. Which meant they graduated at 18.
But at the same time, most students who started school after that new law was passed, are 17 when they start the 12th grade. And a lot of them do turn 18 by graduation time. So that makes my older neighbor right in a sense. I just know I graduated at 17, like a lot of students in my class did. But some of them did turn 18 by graduation time as well. But I didn't turn 18 until after that next school year had started, unlike a lot of my class, who were already 18 by then. So I guess my neighbor was on the very high end of the age spectrum, and I was on the very low end of the age spectrum, as far as the correct high school graduating age. That's probably why we see it so differently, when it comes to this.
So does this has anything to do with a so-called Mandela Effect? That's one for the older cats to wrestle with I guess.
But this did solve the puzzle of those very few classmates with birthdays being very close to mine, but one year older than me, misleading me to think they had stayed back. It was just that that new law had just got passed, allowing me to start school on my 4th birthday, which didn't require me to wait unitl Jan 1, like they had to. In other words, they still had to wait a year, like our older neighbor did, and many more, before that new law was enforced. So there was a good chance that children born in my year, with birthdays close to mine, could have wound up starting school at the same time as their one year older sibling. I knew two siblings in my class who were affected by this, with one being one year older than the other. Me and the younger one were born on the exact same day, and the older one's birthday was a day later. And I always thought the older one might have stayed back, although she no where near fit that category.
So was this second scenario anything related to a Mandela Effect? I'd say it's even further related, but still something to think about.