Thanks everyone. This is helping me brainstorm. Some more questions.

If your student is home schooling or in a virtual school, what do you do about science labs (e.g. for physics, chemistry, biology)? Do colleges have concerns about the lack of lab experience?

Generally (for any type of school, but also more particularly for a school without little or no lab facilities) is it better to take an AP course, or to take the corresponding freshman college course in a university (while the student is in high school)? Under what circumstances is one or the other better? In particular what do "elite" universities think of either option taken at an "average" high school or college? How about doing the freshman college course and then taking the corresponding AP exam as well?

The context of these questions is the idea of a student accumulation a lot of AP and/or college credit before graduating high school, and then hopefully having two options; either getting a BSc in 2-3 years at the local uni, or getting into a more elite uni albeit without necessarily getting full credit for past coursework hence needing 4 years.

ETA: local uni = state flagship (but not a really good one. Median SAT scores would be in 550-600 range.)

Last edited by 22B; 07/30/13 10:29 AM.