Technology is disclosed herein for open block boundary group programming of non-volatile memory such as NAND. The open block boundary group could potentially be read in response to a request from a host for the data stored in the group. In an aspect, the memory system will determine whether programming a group of memory cells in a selected block will result in an open block. If it will not result in an open block, then the memory system uses a first set of programming parameters to program the group. However, if it will result in an open block then the memory system uses a second set of programming parameters to program the boundary group. The programming parameters may include verify levels and/or a program voltage step size. The second set of programming parameters can tighten Vt distributions, which mitigates mis-reads if the boundary group is read.