Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Advocacy for Early College Entrance

Good questions and I really appreciate the great input. It is my son who has done his research and is quite clear that 4 years more is just too long. He will need to work on the History, Politics, Econ and writing, but Math, Biol, Chem, Physics, Calc, Algebra are college level. I recognize there will be no easy match for social peers in college, but have observed far better interaction with college age and level of maturity than high or middle school kids.
We don't have great high school options where we live. There are a couple of community colleges that do a good job at dual enrollment, so this is why I'd like to think of that as a second option.
Long term college entry is a better option than dual enrollment. The exit age will be legal with career plans and program of interest.

Good question- Why? Well, in short the other options are not as good for this particular character and based on where we live and laws. He has found college students far easlier to connect with than high schoolers or age peers. I'm for the community college dual enrollment option.

I'm curious about EPGY experiences as well. The costs a bit high and would like some input if you have ideas on value?

Thank you. Yes. New to DYS and will need to explore more.

The thing is, though-- and I am saying this as the parent to a 13yo high school junior doing AP and dual enrollment-- and also as a former college professor in a math-heavy STEM field...

the writing expectations even at those subjects are WAY beyond anything that your child has experienced. Ever. He's 9-10. He may THINK that he's ready-- but the odds are very, VERY good that he's wrong about that.


His interests and understanding may well be late-secondary/early-post-secondary. I get that, because as noted, I've had experience with the situation that you find yourself in.

Do take stock of whether or not there is ANY way that he can manage the volume, speed, and sheer level of the written expectations in a collegiate setting; those things are pretty extreme in terms of the differences from the middle school level material he's seen. It's a huge jump in expectations even from what honors high school kids have seen.

If it were my child (and I realize it's not) I'd probably be making a deal about doing a double skip into high school with an online school, and work with a counselor that understands that your child is PG-- and will LET him compress 2yrs into each of the next two.

If he can manage that, he's ready for college, and if he can't keep up with the output demands, at least you'll know.

It also allows you to subject accelerate as needed-- that is, if he gets into a AP physics and finds that it really isn't challenging enough to be worth the time he spends on it, then he can look for a college course locally that the school will allow him to substitute.

Advantages of that route are many and CLEAR.

a. Simplifies admission because at the end of that two years, he WON'T be a 'special' admit. He'll be a high school graduate with excellent ACT scores. As it stands, I think that you're going to have trouble with a regular admission-- he simply hasn't demonstrated that he has the background and ability to be a college student yet.

b. It teaches him something he's going to need to know in college-- how to just turn the crank and DO the work even when it's a lot of work for (seemingly) little gain. To do work that he doesn't FEEL like doing. More on this momentarily.

c. This is also a maturity issue at work. Again, I'm speaking from experience here. My DD was cognitively more than ready for college level material at 9-10yo. She was certainly reading textbooks in environmental science, history and biology then, and enjoying them thoroughly. She HATED the redundant, low-level teaching in her 7th-8th grade classes. But no WAY was she ready for the overall expectations of college otherwise. She didn't work on others' schedules, had serious self-motivational problems related to busywork, and the intervening few years have made a WORLD of difference in her written expression, in her critical reasoning in the social sciences, and frankly, in her life experience.

Yes. We have chosen to hold her at the level that her written expression can support. Why? Because we have both BEEN college educators, and we know what happens to kids that-- for no reason other than lack of maturity-- can't keep up there. They struggle, and can't show what they know very well. You are NOT going to get accommodations for that lagging written expression because it's asynchrony, not disability, unless I've misunderstood you.

All of that is why MY goal would be to make the process of getting that high school diploma tolerable somehow. That may be quite a tall order, and I'm very sympathetic.

Honestly? Your son isn't in a position to know what he doesn't know. He's nine or ten, right? He really cannot know what a full load of honors and AP high school coursework would be like. Agree to try a +2 skip and compacting before you agree to what amounts to a +6 year skip on the basis of a 9/10yo child (even a PG one) who is (probably rightly) in a horribly inappropriate school placement currently. I can tell you that the jump in expectations with Connections' curriculum as you move from honors/GT middle school into honors HS is about 25-30% more output, and that it's another 30-40% greater moving into AP-- which is STILL (IMO) not as demanding as most college coursework. BUT-- can he manage 200% of the output demands, 200% of the pacing, and the expectation that he has the written communication skills of someone who has just finished AP Composition as a high school senior and has spent four years in a laboratory science and has more than two years of a foreign language?
I understand that your son could more than handle 200% of the output demands currently placed on him. He understands that, too. He's HUNGRY to learn more of what HE wants to learn. I know-- I had this conversation with my DD at this age, too. She really thought that college was where she could "study what I want to learn." When I probed, I realized that this was my ten year old's childish logic talking. She had NO IDEA what a general education core or prerequisite coursework was going to do to that particular dream. When we informed her, she was pretty sulky, truthfully-- so college isn't the dream environment that a lot of PG middle schoolers think that it is. Besides, while my 10yo (and, oh, my goodness, my 13yo) can TALK a great, persuasive line, she is still just 13. She could give me quite the lecture about why she should be permitted to do all manner of things, but I'm not necessarily going to allow it just because she is so persuasive and eloquent, because she can't (yet) exercise the judgment of an adult.

You still have to do things that you think are pointless in college-- they're just a lot harder and more time-consuming. A collegiate environment also differs from that of secondary education in that there is an EXPECTATION of 100% independence and all of the privileges (such as transportation) that come with it. Does he have the maturity to manage that with the limitations that being 11-14 would impose? Mine certainly didn't. She's acquiring it-- and we HOPE that she'll be there by next June, when she's 14. The alternative is that Mom and Dad get to 'make' her do her freshman chem homework and sit with her while she goes to class, and sign waivers over lab class liability. Oy.

That probably isn't what you want to hear. But I think this is too big a step at once, and it also closes off the possibility of a truly elite college experience later-- which means that he's trading "not doing high school" for "also not meeting any true peers" because they probably will NOT be at the local community college, that's for sure. They are at Ivies and selective colleges.

There are PRIVATE online schools if a public charter isn't available in your state. I know for a fact that Connections can do what I've suggested to you, though they may cavil at first-- just insist that they let him TRY it and provide them with evidence of his ability. They've done it for us.

Of course-- common interests.

Have you considered pairing him up with a college-aged "mentor" who can just spend time geeking out on the subject with him? That is-- you pay for a "tutor" but the reality is that they just "play" together on the topics they both find interesting.

Wanted to throw in a couple things here, having a spouse teaching at the community college and having tried a semester at one as a rebound school, the material depth and coverge is so much lighter than a full university and the chance of intellectual peers outside of the faculty would be even lighter than in high school.

Since you are homeschooling anyhow, have you considered using the MIT Open Courseware?

Also just noting that if you haven't checked into local college costs (and, frankly, whether or not there is even SPACE for him at a local community college) EPGY may start to look a lot less expensive.



It was going to cost my DD $1200 to take two terms of German at our local college this past fall. Pre-calculus would have been similar, but she couldn't get a seat in the class.

Thank you. Your experience is very valuable and I appreciate the perspective. Lot's to consider. We haven't skilled any grades actually; more like compacting 8 grades over the past 4 years. I have not tried paying for the "tutor" but that's may be a great match for this situation!

We've used the MIT materials a few years now, Udacity and Coursera. I try not to overalap more than 2 courses. I find these a decent judge of capability with the exercises tests. MOOKS, I think are a great alternative as I can use their access as a treat in the work day.

I'm a HUGE fan of compacting for kids like this. That's exactly what we've chosen to do with our DD.

SHE, on the other hand, has sometimes been quite a reluctant participant. But a lot of that is that she "already knows" most of the curriculum... so while I'm sympathetic on that score, there is also plenty that she is learning that she DOESN'T yet know... and those meta-skills (like how to construct a reasonably coherent outline, a bibliography, MLA formatting, citations for different types of writing, how to write a lab report, how to ask for help from a teacher, etc) are what she is actually learning instead.

Those things are pretty valuable in and of themselves! We've not done a lot of out and out 'skips' because part of the social fabric of relating well to peers is about shared experiences. So skipping high school biology by testing out of it might have been an option, but then it leaves her as a college student without a way to "relate" to her classmates about the stuff that goes on in that class.