He isn't happy with his score. Some of his friends are joining a long-term batch and he wants to go with them. His state entrance rank should still get him a decent college here. Parents who've been through this: did the extra year make a real difference? What would you ask him before deciding?
Ask him what he would do differently in the second year, concretely. 'More effort' is not a plan. Two colleagues' children took the year. One improved a lot, the other came out tired and with roughly the same rank. What separated them, as far as I could tell, was whether the first attempt went badly for a reason that could be fixed. And if the friends are a big part of it, that's worth saying out loud with him. Not as an accusation, it's just part of the picture.
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