The purpose of this work was to theoretically evaluate the relevance of using homogeneous biphasic models to represent the mechanical behavior of the growth plate. To that end, representative volume elements (RVEs) of reserve and proliferative zones, where the extracellular matrix was modeled as poroelastic and the chondrocytes were assumed to be isotropic and linearly elastic, were meshed by finite elements. The matrix obeyed either the biphasic poroelastic (BPE) or the transversely isotropic biphasic poroelastic (TIBPE) models. The RVEs were submitted to unconfined compression (UC), confined compression (CC) and to a hybrid loading featuring a prescribed pore pressure. The overall responses of the RVEs to UC and CC were fit by either the BPE or the TIBPE models. The study revealed that the BPE model was unable to predict the responses under UC and CC simultaneously for both modeled zones. The TIBPE model fit with good accuracy the RVEs effective responses under UC and CC, but failed to predict the response of the hybrid loading. These results show that a mixture of poroelastic phases does not lead to an overall behavior that can be fit with the same formulation. Moreover, this study exemplified the fact the even if the TIBPE model fits experimental data under UC and CC due to its increased number of parameters, it can fail to predict other loading cases. This motivates further micromechanical studies where the local behavior of the constituent phases would carefully be evaluated.