This post is created to link to a thread called Early College Entrance - radically early (in the Parenting and Advocacy forum), for the benefit of any future visitors who may look in this "College" forum to find that type of discussion.

This is to underscore the importance for parents to realize that once a child attends college, parental rights under FERPA end:
Parents should understand that their rights transfer to the student when he or she reaches the age of 18 or attends a postsecondary school at any age. Students to whom the rights have transferred are "eligible students."


As for advice, my advice would be: Never play the age card. In other words, do not ask for special favors, support, attention, or consideration due to age. College is more than pure academic/intellectual pursuit. An amount of maturity which affords the ability to understand the system and work within it (essentially developing internal locus of control, and demonstrating positive self-advocacy) may be hallmarks of a college-ready student. A child may need practice to become adept at deflecting conversations from the topic of age, and/or redirecting the focus of conversations from age back to the topic at hand (in a nonchalant, ho-hum, matter-of-fact manner) if someone else should veer off-topic and probe about age. Others may be curious, and that is to be expected, however the twin goals may be to avoid becoming a spectacle, and to maintain composure.

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NOTE: Change in FERPA link
1) The WayBack Machine (internet archive) is often useful when a website or webpage is NOT FOUND or has been changed and no longer contains the described content
2) See https://web.archive.org/web/20170919025452/http://familypolicy.ed.gov/ferpa-parents-students
3) See https://web.archive.org/web/20170929141339/https://studentprivacy.ed.gov/