Just wondering. For those of you with kids who will probably graduate from high school 2+ years ahead of schedule, do you or your kids have ideas in mind for what they'd do next?

Would you let your child go off to college very early? If so, would you let him/her go if the college was close to home or would a distant college or university be okay?

I know that there's no single right answer to this question and that everything depends completely on each child, but I thought I'd ask as a way to solicit exchange of ideas. Here are a few of ours for our child:

* Do a high-school abroad year or two with a program like AFS.

* Get a p/t job and take random classes at a community college (astronomy, ceramics, etc. etc. etc.).

* Do an exotic internship (e.g. Marine Biology in the Bahamas). There are many experiences like this aimed at high school-aged kids.

* Other.

Gee... thanks for bringing up the topic I've worked the hardest to avoid!

Our DS will graduate from HS @ 15, and will not turn 16 until the fall.

I've read everything I can get my hands on regarding early enrollment programs and early college in general and am intrigued by the options currently available. I suppose I'm taking the head-in-sand approach for now, hoping that more colleges will have programs in place to support the early kids.

Dandy

Post removed because it was written poorly and not clearly. The post caused much unintentional upset, offended people, and possible hurt feelings (which I regret).

Another option, in some states (like MN), is not graduating early but taking advantage of the post-secondary enrollment option. (You go to college while still in high school, for free.) I did this my senior year of high school many years ago (FT at the college, no classes at the high school), so I got my first year of college at the local university for free. Of course, it's pretty much the same as going to college early, but thought I'd throw that out because it's FREE. Books and all.

Well, technically mine won't be a high school grad because he is not going to finish highschool. But he is going to college early. By age he would be starting highschool next fall, instead he will be at college fulltime. This is most definitely the right path for him. If I was to do things over again, my only change would probably be to move him up one more year. He was really ready for fulltime university classes this last year.



These things are not mutually exclusive.



Everyone is different and everyone follows their own path.

Has anyone had a child that chose some of the options Val suggested, delaying early college?

It has been suggested, but has anyone had their child try them?

Ren

One thing to keep in mind if the child graduates hs early, then later applies to college-
I think you would want a very organized plan. Although it could be lots of fun to just go sailing for 6 months or whatever, it's gotten so competitive to colleges that you have to keep that in mind. Kids often take a "gap year" to buff up their resume to get INTO college. Taking a gap year or 2 if you are young might sound good, but I think you have to plan if your child ultimately wants to go to a competitive college.

Yes, CFK these are our opinions and not meant to be "pushed" onto others. Being well rounded is subjective. We feel that excelling in core subjects alone is not well rounded -that is what I meant and it is simply our opinion.
Of course, to each his/her own.

Do you have study's to show that kids graduating 15 yrs. and younger have a better chance in getting into competitive schools than kids who graduate early and spend 1-2 years experiencing foreign country's or having work related internships?
If anyone can add a link to a study showing that kids who graduate high school at 15 or younger have a good or better chance of getting into top schools I would love to read it ( I am not aware of one, nor have I studied this myself). DA did tell us pretty clearly that top schools aren't interested in young applicants (they did not reference anything).

I don't think that it is easier for a kid 15 or younger to get into top universities. In fact, the opposite is probably true. I don't have stats to support this assertion. It is just a feeling after sending two kids to colleges at 16. Top colleges actually are more concerned about the very young students (some of them do fall apart in college). Admitting kids this young is a risk the school have to take (if everything else is equal). Both of my kids downplayed their ages and put an effort to show their maturity in their essays.

College admission is a game of credentials: academic, leadership, community service, talent, awards, etc. These all take time to accumulate. This puts the kids who skipped a lot (especially in high school) at a disadvantage.

Yes, I agree.

Your assumption remains that kids who are entering college are not well rounded. It is a very debatable point but let's just say for a minute we could all agree that being well rounded is a good thing. And, let's say we can agree the definition of being well rounded is excelling across the board in all academic areas, being highly proficient in at least one foreign language, being good at a least one sport, being well developed in at least one area of the arts. There are early college kids who exceed that definition easily. (and of course many kids who enter at traditional age who don't).

Kids mature at different rates in different ways and families vary greatly in their resources. I'm sure I probably thought at the beginning that with so many things to study college could be put off for ten years. And, then we hit the reality that for our child this was lonely, unsatisfying, and not engaging. That's entirely silly when there existed a perfect solution in the form of a university education.

So to answer the original poster, we were lucky enough to have a good local college option.

Graduating younger is not a way to game the system or increase odds of highly selective admissions. I've never heard of anyone doing it for that reason, but rather doing it as a means to meet the needs of the child to access an appropriate education.

Potatoes,

How old will your son be when he graduates from the local college? Has he thought what he wants to do after that?

One of the things I tell DD, since she takes Chinese, piano etc. is that I have no idea what she will decide to be when she is 20. And it is my job as parent to give her options.

Ren

I wrestle with these questions too as we are currently trying to decide between homeschool/school acceleration/early college. I have to tell you that the few people I talk to have VERY STRONG opinions against any choice but going to school and staying at grade level. I actually find this a bit annoying as I hate the attitude of sameness. People aren't the same. People shouldn't all do the same thing. Our society can't survive on sameness. If we all become lawyers, who is going to help us when we are sick. Sameness doesn't work. Ugh, I digress. The whole everyone take the same route thing irritates me.

Having said that, I recently met a 40 something woman who was academically accelerated and started college at 15. In her case, she wanted to be with her peers, but her parents insisted she move ahead and stay challenged. This girl said, she didn't have any friends because college students didn't want to hang out with her and younger kids were busy with their school lives. She ended up not finishing college and dropping out at 18. She did eventually go back and finished a degree at a much later date. She said she wished her parents hadn't done that to her. This was a very sobering story for me. It has been on my mind a lot. I think the key in this situation is that she didn't want to go to college. She wanted to be with friends, but her parents pushed. I think that has to be the difference - a kid pushing versus parents demanding.

But, I do think having a social group is important. As younger and younger kids go to college, maybe there is a social group that wasn't there 25 years ago.

These are all random thoughts, please don't take offense. I've been trying to work this all out in my own head as we try to figure out the best route. It is hard to know what to do because it doesn't feel like there are many experts to talk to in these situations.

I think that if the kid is ready, they can push for it themselves. There was a kid admitted to Harvard from Styvescant, I think last year, at 15. This kid did all the AP courses offered and decided to apply. Obviously his scores were great.

Some kids make their own choices at that point. Though I can pressure from parents.

Ren

This would be even further back than that, but my grandmother graduated high school at a similar age. She had an October bd, so she was a bit shy of 15 at the start of her senior year of high school, having skipped 3rd and 5th grades. At that time, there were few advanced education options for women so she went to secretarial school for a while to buy time until she was old enough to look for work and then later get married and have kids. She never expressed any dissatisfaction with the educational decisions that were made in her earlier years, though, and was a really wonderful woman who seemed satisfied with the way things had gone.

Like you mention, though, I really don't think that her parents were the ones pushing for the acceleration. They were Italian immigrants who likely just went along with whatever the schools were suggesting she needed.

My oldest will be graduating high school at 16, so not nearly as young as some of your kids, but she plans to attend college out of state straight out of high school. Hopefully we can figure out a way to finance that b/c we really don't have the $ saved and hopefully she won't be so young as to give schools pause about accepting her.

Exactly. It was the same for us - why try to find things to fill in some time when what he truly wanted, and needed, was already right there. Some kids are academically strong enough to handle higher level courses but are not socially/emotionally/organizationally/etc. able to handle the demands of being in an environment that is not geared to their chronological age. Some are. Ours is and so the decision to stay on the path we started back when we first accelerated him was an easy one to make when it came to early college.

I do often wonder why college has been exhalted to this lofty status with many people. On this board it seems like it is perfectly acceptable to accelerate a younger child, say elementary aged to middle school, but its questionable to accelerate a child into college. The biggest complaint on this board is that our children are not allowed to learn at their appropriate pace and level, and we are absolutely apalled when people suggest that we stop allowing our children to learn things so that they don't get so far ahead. We complain that their gifted pullout enrichment activities do not even come class to supplying our children with what they really need. Yet when it comes to early college that is exactly what many people are espousing. If all those supplemental options to delay college work so well than why are't more of us applying those same ideas with our younger children instead of grade/subject acceleration?

Because for some kids, they don't work. My son has always "needed to learn". He needed to learn when he was 5, he needed to learn when he was 10. At 14, that hasn't changed. Just because he has reached college level doesn't mean that he no longer needs to learn. Of course there are all kinds of experiences and activities outside the world of academics. He participates in those fully, always has. His need to learn never stopped when the school bell rang. But his involvement in those activities doesn't preclude his appetite to further his academic knowledge. I never told him that he had to stop learning when he was in primary school. I devoted (like many parents on this board) much time and energy to getting him where he needed to be. I won't stop him now just so that he can reach an arbitrary age that society has dictated as appropriate for starting college.

He's been outside of the box his whole life. I guess it will just continue. Not every child can or should attend college early. But it is a valid option, and for a few, the very best option.

CFK.
You mentioned that your son participates fully outside of the academic world. I think it would helpful to us with young children to know what he does, how he does it and where his social life is. This is the age where dating begins and his college mates are probably not going to date him. How is that handled?

Thanks.

Ren

My DD will graduate from HS when she is 16 and will go to college just before 17. She is every bit the 5th grader now, and fits in according to every standard. This being the case, I cannot imagine that she will not want to go to college with her peers. And because she is so like her older friends, and because I can look back at how I was when I was 16, I have no doubts at all that she will be ready and successful. In fact, she already has a list of colleges that she in interested in going to. Some of her criteria are that it be a mid- to largish-size school that is approximately 3 hours away -- "where I'm on my own but can get back easily for the occasional weekend if I want to." She is a very reasonable and mature child who makes friends easily and has a reasonable plan for her education at this point. The only thing I hate about her grade-advancements is that she's going to leave home 2 years earlier than she normally would (I'm going to miss having her around!), but her school situation is what's best for her all around, and I'm totally confident she'll be ready.

Interestingly, I'm not as confident that DS7 would be ready to go to college at 16, and that is one of the main reasons we're just sticking with the single skip and subject acceleration, although it's not quite enough. I'm pretty sure he'd want to go to college straight out of HS, and I'm pretty sure we don't want him in that situation. But, as with everything, time will tell!

I'm a firm believer that each child has different needs and all you can do is do your best to meet those needs, whatever that means.

I admit that I struggle with the concept of early college and the question of whether my children will be mature enough to handle the social pressures. I know that they will not act the same way at college as they do at home. If we get to that point, I would be inclined to have them live at home and attend the local university. Then, when they are "college age" let them go off to school, possibly getting a second degree.

I had a dear friend who started college at 16. I was a counselor on her Freshman hall. Academically, she had hard time her first semester, getting mostly "Cs." Once she found her comfort zone, she had straight "As" for the rest of her undergrad career. Academics were not the problem. Socially, she engaged in a lot of what I considered to be high risk behavior. She seemed to be going through a major rebellion. She tended to hook up with guys who were controlling and angry. She reveled in the fact that they seemed a little dangerous. I had major concerns about some of her choices and would try to talk her about them. She tended to laugh off my concerns and say that she was experimenting with her freedom. Anyway, she ended up getting murdered in grad school by a male companion. When I learned of her death, I wrote a letter to her parents relaying my memories of their vivacious, creative daughter. In response, I got a letter that let me know that they still saw her as the angelic, precocious teenager. They did not seem to know who their daughter had become once she left home at 16. I don't know if any of this had to do with her age -- it may just have been who she was. Still, I can't help but question after all these years if the teenage lack of judgment played a factor in all of it.

I was not clear. In my mind I was thinking about 10-13 years old as going to college early. I am not sure why you find our family view on "well-roundedness" so offensive. I am not stating that you need to agree. We have a child that could graduate very early,but we are choosing to delay that with other options, so I am speaking from a perspective of a parent who has experience with a child who is excelling across the board.

Just out of curiousity since I really have been thinking about this: does allowing your child to travel during a gap year or allowing your child to study overseas allow your child a safer place to learn when deemed not mature enough to go to college? I could see that attending a local college or university could make sense given that your child would still be living at home with you or would, at least, be very close to you, but I've always wondered about the traveling approach while waiting to be mature enough to attend college. It seems like being on your own in a foreign country might be a bit more risky than going a state or two away to attend college. Just wondering if anyone has experience witht this? It's always good to know all about the options.

When I referred to traveling I meant with our family. Val would be a good person to ask as this is a possible option for her son as she stated in the opening post.

Ah, in this case I would bet that virtually all of these kids still live at home with their parents, and so I would tend to view college as I would tend to view all other acceleration options. College, in this case I think, is merely a set of classrooms and teachers that allow a child to learn the stuff they are interested in learning and ready to learn. Since that is what we all hope for for our children (the right learning opportunities), I can't imagine that it would be a bad thing if it was child-driven.

For older kids (15-17), I think the social-maturity might come more into play. But, again, I think it depends of the amount of social independence that a child would be taking on and their individual ability to handle it (with a decision being made based on demonstrated maturity).

I would love this option, but can't figure out what I would do with my other kids while I traveled with my DD for a year! That, I guess, would be an appeal of HSing.

mnmom23: good points : )

That's my anecdotal experience, as well. I was wait-listed for my top choice school when applying as a "left high school at 16, following junior year" applicant. I ended up doing a year abroad rather than go to my second-choice school, and accepted for admission to enter as a 17yo.

DD will graduate high school at 16, and if she goes straight to college, start college at 17. I'd be fine with her going where ever she wanted. Graduating at 15 and starting at 16, maybe not so much.

In my own experience, taking a year off of rigorous math and science classes, on top of coming from a high school that didn't offer much in the way of rigorous science, negatively influenced my choice of college classes. I personally would rather see DD go straight to college than take a gap year.

My daughter is 12 and, if she continued on the same path, would be starting college at 16 ... not as early as some, but early enough to make me concerned.

I think I would actually feel more comfortable with traveling for more life experience (with a group doing non-profit work or something along those lines) than starting college early.

To me, early college for my daughter (because she's very independent and would want to be on her own) would mean having a group of peers around her that are all a couple of years older than her, are drinking around her, engaging in risky behavior around her -- I can't possibly expect a 16 year old to make the right decisions every time in that situation.

A gap year working with a non-profit, traveling and doing hard work for people who need help would be much more helpful to her in my mind. She would be surrounded by people who are still older than her, but it would be a much more diverse crowd, age and experience-wise, engaging in a mix of activities -- some good and some bad for her. And she would have an easier time making better decisions knowing there are people there that she's accountable to.

I would only feel comfortable with early college if it was either the first two years at a local community college (something I think she would rebel heavily against) or a very unique college that has an environment well suited for making the good decisions. She's probably not getting into the best of schools - that's not what she wants for herself and the paths she is exploring don't require it.

I agree with you, and that's why I'd prefer to send my early high school graduate away to college or have him/her study at home than to travel for a year. One way in which travelling for a year could less risky is that there are no grades and thus no academic record to ruin. Maybe there are 14yo high school graduates who don't have the maturity and work habits to thrive in college but who will be more mature in a few years. However, I would worry that time away from academic work would worsen work habits more than age would improve them.

I have read about early high school graduates being sent on an exchange program to live with a family in another country and attend school there. That could be an interesting cultural experience, although it's not what I would prefer for my children.

It seems that parents of girls are more "fearful" of early college than the boys. Which I can totally understand. Our 15 year old girls can be easy targets, yet how many college girls are interested in a 15 year old boy?

Actually, it's exactly the opposite for us (see my previous post). I don't really think girls are more or less likely to make bad decisions than boys are, and I'm not concerned about my DD being a "target." I know for certain that I was less of a social target than my twin brother at virtually any age. And, in a very general sense, girls are often more socially mature than boys are. I'm not a fan of making sweeping statements relating to gender, though.

I personally would not be a fan of sending a 16yo boy across the country to college, either. I'm concerned about executive function, not drinking and sexual activity.

During my second year of college, I studied and traveled abroad in Europe. It was one of the most amazing experiences of my life. However, looking back (especially after discovering a journal I kept) I am shocked at what things my friends and I did. If my kids did what I did... LOL What's interesting, is that everyone thought (me included!) that I was one of the "mature, good, responsible" kids hahaha ... Too much freedom, too many new friends and too many exciting things to explore! ... And that's what made the whole experience so incredible

What do you think about having your child take a semester off before graduating h.s. to do a work related internship?
Any other ideas to "slow" the process down yet make the time spent valuable?
We have thought of having our DS learn history, music, and art history beyond high school levels,but are concerned about accumulating too many college credits- any ideas?

Sorry mnmom23, but it is much easier to rape a girl. And that is not a choice. I think you underestimate the situations a young girl, especially if she is attractive and smart and some idiot wants to prove something, can find herself. Even if she made all the smart choices. Being 16 is being 16.

Ren

I would never minimize rape or suggest it was a choice or even say that a girl could not unwittingly end up in a dangerous situation, be the girl smart or not, attractive or not. But, I would suggest that boys could also get themselves into a lot of trouble, physical, emotional, or otherwise. My objection was to stereotyping that early college would be more inappropriate for girls than for boys. I still feel that it depends on the child, the family, the college situation, and the living situation, and not the gender of the student.

I certainly remember getting advice at school that if you were doing an arts or humanities degree a year out was a great idea, but that this was a danger if you were doing science or maths. In my case, it was more that I'd been hanging on by my fingernails for years waiting for "real" education and having got to the point where I could see the prospect of getting some, there was no way I was going to postpone it for another year.

Oh my.

Well, this is definitely our situation, but as I think I've stated repeatedly, our largest concerns with her at high school graduation (not quite age 15, we anticipate), is that she is also right in the middle of a window of vulnerability w/r/t good management of a life-threatening chronic medical condition.

So the conventional path of 'going away to college' would be terrifying even if she were fairly mature 18. In light of the chronological age and relative maturity re: executive skills, there's simply no way that it's an option as far as we can see. It might be possible if we opted to move to where she went to school so that she could still live at home, but honestly, we don't see a compelling argument for doing that. She's undoubtedly Ivy quality, but I don't know that she's necessarily enjoy it any more than many other collegiate environs, which negates the benefit of doing that.

So our plan at the moment is to have her make a smooth transition from high school into community college courses (a trek that we've already begun with art and other community ed courses with her at 11yo) then into post-high school study at the same community college, then into a four year degree at a local public university with a good reputation. After undergraduate study, SHE plans to either pursue graduate studies in the physical sciences or go to law school. Or maybe library science.

We feel that it may well be in her best interests to do a sort of 'gap year' if she can, though it's complicated since many travel opportunities are not possible for her. She has mentioned the idea of working on turning her small business (a low-profit that currently partners with a community non-profit via a fixed percentage profit-share) into an NPO, and/or doing an unpaid internship with the community non-profit to learn some granstmanship, etc. These are all things that we are really encouraging her to pursue.

Even if she were to do those things, however, I think we'd still encourage her to take a class or two. Probably math. (Because I also think that math is one of those things that if you don't use it, it does rapidly atrophy. Recovery is painful. )




In any event, we think that it's probably too soon to know for sure what she wants to do as an adult. Our job is to coach her to keep options OPEN for as long as she can so that she buys herself plenty of time for those decisions.

We've discouraged her from specializing too early, in other words.

Yes, this is the situation that we anticipate finding to be the case with our DD< as well.

We're already seeing the stress fractures from TRYING to make things fit... when they... just... don't.


Asynchrony is a real beast in many ways, isn't it? I just shake my head sometimes when I realize how hard it is for others to understand what we're up against here as parents. Most of the people we know IRL truly don't have any way to understand what it means to have a child who is simultaneously ten and twenty-one. Nevermind understanding what that feels like from her perspective.

This is a heavy consideration. From what i've read early graduates might qualify for college but they don't qualify for most scholarships due to age only. That's different than homeschooling and taking a few college classes. I just made a mental note because I want to feel like I'm one step ahead of my kid's needs so I'm overplanning, anticipating the possibilities, preparing to react to reality as it unfolds.

I love that your DD has her own business! How fantastic. I would love to hear more about it. Would you be willing to start a topic on this. Pretty interesting indeed!

I might consider the option for my chidren but what I had in mind was not "backpacking around Europe" (like the frightening movie "Taken"). I might consider something like a foreign exchange student situation. My grandparents hosted foreign exchange students while my dad was in highschool. They would be in the care of a host family. It's an entirely different situation i would imagine.

Sorry. I'm not really comfortable discussing specifics of her business model, since it's pretty unique and therefore personally identifying. (Particularly given her media exposure.)

I mentioned it, though, because in kids that have an entreprenurial leaning or are inclined toward community service, this can be a pretty good way of enriching during the adolescent years.

In her case, this was a direct response to (illegally) being tossed out of club athletics due to her disability. She spun her angst and bitterness into gold that does good in her community. I'm pretty proud of that.

And proud you should be : )
I fully respect your desire for privacy.

Good luck to your daughter. Maybe E Mama would be interested in a WSJ article I posted previously about teenage entrepreneurs: http://giftedissues.davidsongifted....Teenage_Entrepreneurs_WSJ.html#Post81544 .

Thanks Bostonian. I will check it out : )

I was just talking with a mother of DD's classmate and her older son is at Hunter. There is an 1th grade student, who remains at Hunter for social reasons and other stuff, who is one of those PG students they make movies about. His father has PhD in math and cannot do the son' homework. The son has finished the math curriculum at Columbia. He stays at Hunter because all the courses he takes at Columbia, NYU are free. He is almost finished the physics. She did not elaborate what level and she is a very smart chemical engineer.

She told me the father stuggles with the son's homework which he finishes in a blink of an eye. These kinds of kids do need college early because their brains just work that way but now what does he do. He also is a piano prodigy. He can learn a complicated concerto in a week and play it perfectly. It is like Little Man Tate was written about him.

This is not my DD, who is smart enough to be whatever she wants but will not win a Fields' Medal in math for some new theorum.

Ren

EDIT: Sorry, he is an 11th grade student. Not 1th grade.

Ren

I don't at all find the concept of well roundedness "offensive." What I find to be a totally inaccurate assumption is your assumption that students would not be well rounded if they enter college early or that they would be more well rounded if their entrance to college was delayed. It may not be your experience, but yes, there are kids that young who are very well rounded.

That's really not true. The biggest source of money for college is financial aid and there are no age restrictions on that. As far as scholarships, yes there are early entrants who get merit scholarships. As with traditional age students the largest source of merit aid is from colleges and universities themselves. Students of all ages should understand that the most highly selective colleges do not give merit aid but they tend to be more generous with financial aid.

Some states and some schools have good options for free or reduced prices on tuition for dual enrolled students (not yet graduated from high school). However, other students may find that taking courses part time - a couple courses a semester - is actually much more expensive than entering full time when they will be eligible for financial aid and scholarships.

I agree that it is key that it be child driven. Also, I would look for the child not just to be capable of handling college level work, but to have really exhausted other options. There are some early college courses at some schools that are frankly quite an overlap with high school and those tend not to be a good choice for an early entrant.

While your early entrant isn't going to be hanging around keg parties, college can be a lot more than a series of classrooms and teachers. There are lectures, concerts, academic clubs, study groups, friends, mentor relationships, etc. I'd say my son's college experience is very similar in all those ways to my traditional age experience.

Agreed.

I venture to guess that my daughter is one of them. She is not a 'freak' kid by any means, but she really IS that smart (or whatever you want to call it).

It's hard work, as a parent, to keep them 'fed' with all of what they seem to need, and to try to gently offer up a mixture of things to them so that they CAN be that well-rounded that young. I don't necessarily find it offensive, but I think that perhaps it is a lack of understanding of the specifics.

For example, my daughter's weekly obligations include:

caring for her pets (cats, dog, rabbits)
piano practice (around 6-8 hours a week)
several 4H projects (dog, rabbit, and related leadership obligations-- 2-8 hours in any given week)
community service (often about 3 hours weekly)
school (high school honors student)
friends
side projects (animation, currently)
household chores
her small business
honor society club officer duties
swimming/Tai Chi/other sports
art class with her dad at local CC
reading for pleasure
playing



So yes, she really is one of those kids. While we could have 'prevented' her from being radically accelerated, I suppose, by unschooling and/or allowing her to lounge on the sofa day after day reading everything in sight (her natural state), I simply don't believe (as an experienced educator) that most kids are very well served by THAT environment, either, in the long run. I realize that there are parents that disagree with me on that score, and that's fine, but they aren't changing my opinion on that one given what I've seen in college classrooms over the years. We've had to be creative and innovative as parents and advocates in order to prevent her from graduating from high school at anything even younger. So it isn't that we haven't really tried going "wider/deeper" with her-- but there are really only so many hours in every day, and her schedule already makes MY head spin.

This has been an interesting thread!

We're facing these choices right now with our 13 year old. We've skipped her to 9th for this year, so she's planning to graduate at 16. She could skip again, but I really don't want her to, for all the reasons people have already stated.

We're still not sure what to do, or what we will or won't allow at that point. It's good to know that we're not alone!

When my children were much younger, I really appreciated the wisdom and perspectives of parents with older children who understood vast landscapes I hadn't begun to travel. I think PTP brings an enormous amount of wisdom gained from experience following an unusual path. I think parents with younger children, myself included, can learn a lot from parents much farther down the path of parenting extremely gifted kids, but taunting is unlikely to lead to learning or any kind of worthwhile exchange.

So, are you saying you think 10-12 are well rounded enough to be in college full time? Maybe well rounded for 12 year olds, but their intellect alone does not make them well rounded- in my opinion.
You sound as if you are looking for a "fight". I stated it is my opinion. I do not need to agree with you ,nor have I asked anyone to agree with me.

Oh woe, think this got funky quick?! Am I still on the regular board. �Of course everybody's got their own row to hoe. �
Tsk . �Tsk.

Tolerance and respect seem to be in order. �There is a saying that I have recently come across while reading a book that I will quote out of context in order to illustrate a proposal for a perspective that would promote tolerance and respect. �"anything that is possible must be". �Therefore if something is a possibility that possibility must exist. �Perhaps it would help if we were able to assume that active participants were replying with a dual purpose of both joining the current conversation as well as to leave our thoughts in writing for lurkers now and in the future. �I don't think anybody here would want to take away anyone else's parental prerogatives. �Just accept every perspective as being "possible so they must be allowed". �If it helps you can assume that they are not meant for you personally but are left as a possibility for other parents viewing this thread and weighing these issues to consider.

<end Rap 123>

Sheesh I talk to people and I sound like I'm talking to toddlers. �Forgive my presumptuous rudeness. �I am with children all day. �That clearly has an effect on my tone. �LoL

That's a good point, and one I hadn't considered. I didn't really think about younger kids taking part in those experiences, but they seem like they would be very valuable to students of any age.

If children finish college earlier, they can start working earlier, and the resulting extra earnings over their career should not be ignored. If peak career earnings are about $100K for a bright college graduate, and if 4 years (say) are added to the peak earning period, that's $400K extra dollars. That's a lot of money!

The effect can be even larger if the years saved by early college are invested in graduate training that greatly increases earnings. Some doctors may not do fellowships beyond their residencies because at age 30 they want to start working and earning decent money. If the residency is finished at age 26, the doctor may have more patience to do a fellowship in a high-paying specialty.

I'd keep in mind that many early entrants do live at home. And, of course that countless teenagers have shown it is just as possible to have sex at 3 pm as it is at midnight.

This is a rough time to be a kid (and to be a parent). I don't see high school as any protection from exposure to sex or drugs. And from what I've seen in the last few years I suspect that it is quite typical to hear a lot more inappropriate language in the halls of a typical high school building than in a typical college building. I'd hate to see parents of kids who would benefit from early college scared off with the assumption that high school is safer.

Yes, I think there are preteens out there who are such extreme outliers not just in terms of intellect, but maturity and diverse talents that it can be hard to imagine unless you've met a few. It can make a person feel inadequate to meet an 11 year old who is more well rounded than you are an adult... but yup, they are out there.

It is a topic for another thread if well roundedness is a college prerequisite. I'm thinking if it was we'd be losing out on a good share of our engineers, writers, computer programmers, physicists, etc. We should all be aware of that well roundedness can be used as a tool to deny gifted children an appropriate education. Some kids, probably many gifted kids, are never going to be well rounded and that's not a bad thing. Denying them an appropriate education until they appear more normal is. Extreme outliers often aren't normal - that's in the definition.

The reason I responded to unfair assumptions about early college students and the reason I'm posting on this thread is that parenting a child who is such an extreme outlier can be really scary. It can be difficult to find information. I'm imaging there might be somebody out there who is in a place similar to where I was years ago. You might have a kid who is entirely different from anything you have the basis of experience to understand and anything you could have imagined. You see your child's profound joy in learning and you believe that it is a a reasonable expectation for your child to want to learn. Perhaps it becomes obvious your plans of "going wide" are wearing thin and they are not at all what your child wants. And, you realize attending college your child can finally go at something remotely close to the right pace and connect with intellectual peers.

Unfortunately, what parents are too often told in this situation is that the kids will end up profoundly maladjusted, without friends, not well rounded, suicidal, preyed upon sexually, etc. We've heard it all and unfortunately much of it on this board that is supposed to be a place of support for gifted families.

None of those negative things bear any relationship to anything we've experienced and they don't seem to be a good characterization of the other kids we've known who have gone to college early. This unconventional path is probably not one you ever expected to consider but it may be a place where your child is very happy. There are not perfect solutions for many gifted kids - but there can be very good ones and for some kids that will mean early college, even very early college. So my message would be ignore scare tactics and listen to your child and be open to what they need.

Interesting point. Another exciting thing for some people is that they feel more flexible getting more in depth education and degrees in multiple fields. This can offer really exciting possibilities because too often we have disciplines totally separate from each other with researchers and academics struggling to understand anyone from a different field. People who can bridge multiple domains may do really exciting work.

As Howler Karma commented earlier in the thread, I'm not about to post personal information about my child on a public forum. And, really I can't imagine who would submit their child for inspection in response to that sort of question.

I will say again, we've got a very happy child who is wonderfully engaged and enjoying life. We would not have that without early college. I feel very fortunate that we have the option and I hope families who face a similar decision will make that not shut down a good option based on fear.

My opinion, which is based on my experience, is that kids mature at different rates in different ways and that variation includes kids who are mature, and well rounded, much younger than many would guess possible.

The problem with these stories is that no one can ever know all the pieces of the story, and 16 year old impressions have to be taken with a grain of salt. I know several kids who were afraid that they couldn't cut it in a more challenging situation after years of enforced underachievement, and instead of saying 'Yeah, I'm afraid I can't do it and I desperately need to protect my ego by not trying' say things like 'It's friendships that really matter to me.'

Of course it may be that friendships really were what this individual wanted at that moment, but I still feel that parents have an obligation to look at the big picture and make their best judgement. Wanting a child to 'stay challenged' isn't such a monstrous thing to want. And it isn't her parent's fault that there were no other workable options for her at that particular time and place. It may be that the parents perceived the child at risk for dropping out well before high school, and that this way she had a lot more credits pre-drop out than another possible way. It is the job of the parents to make their best judgement. Is making one's best judgement a guarantee of success? No it is not.

This person says that she wishes her parents hadn't 'done that to her' and it may be that her parents were totally wrong and doing it for their own ego reasons. But it's just as likely that they saw things that she didn't see about her own behavior. It's easy to want to change things if the current situation is pretty crumby. Maybe the friends that this women left were objectionable to her parents in some way? Maybe this woman complained bitterly about how bored she was but doesn't remember that?

I do think that at age 16, many parents would be likely to take a child's perspective into account, but we'll never know exactly what happened back there.

It's interesting to me that this storyteller never takes any responsibility for her actions at any point in the story, but seems to retell it from a victim perspective. From my reading, her perspective is that the problem was not that she didn't get enough resource to handle the challenges she was faced with, but that she was asked to do what couldn't be done. I have to question that.

As you point out Sailing, there are a lot more options at this moment in time, such as PEG and Simon's Rock, and taking college classes as a High School student, and we can all be glad of that.

Love and More Love,
Grinity

I agree. I don't think repeating horror stories with incomplete facts does anyone any good and it runs the real risk of adding to the burden of parents who are already struggling to do the best they can do. For many of our kids there are not going to be perfect solutions. We need to do what we can to hope we make the right decisions and always keep in mind there are few decisions that can't be undone. Sometimes kids and circumstances change and we'll make a change - more often than not it will turn out.

Also, I think we should all keep in mind that adolescence and young adult life can be complicated for lots of kids, gifted or not. Many kids leave college or pick a new direction in life. That is something that maybe shouldn't be shocking no matter the student's age.

I have to strongly agree with this while carefully making it clear that I still want to hear every story anybody would like to tell. Stories can not guide us now for several reasons. Stories are mulitifaceted. Stories are individual. Time changes everything. Different stories have different settings. Different colleges have different teachers at different times. Every child is different.

I found this while scanning the database located on the sidebar of this forum. This is an autobiography of a twelve year old college student. It features the kind of story that nobody can find objectionable. The child skipped several grades without his parents finding out about it. There are so many shades of grey between the following story and engaged parents who are actively involved in advocating for their children as students.
http://www.davidsongifted.org/db/Articles_id_10157.aspx

I think an issue that we are dancing around, is that College in general - as currently conceived of in the US, doesn't really appear to be a healthy environment for young people of age 16- 26.

I remember that when I was in college my 'outer-directed perfectionism' was highly active and I was very judgmental of the general behavior of my agemates. I was also judgmental of the Adults who said: "Aw, this is their only time in their life to cut loose and have fun, why be such a soil sport?" It seemed to me that the far too many young people suffered far too much, sometimes from the pressures of the academics, sometimes at their own hands and sometimes at the hands of their peers.

Although Spike Lee's 1988 film School Daze was written in a way that addressed some specific issues faced by students at historically black colleges, it really resonated with me overall and my experience at a very different university. Like the character at the end, I wanted to run around yelling: "Wake up...Wake up....Wake up!"

Humans are social creatures, so putting kids in large groups that have norms which are very different from the rest of society and very unhealthy, worries me as much at 18 as it does at 16. Of course I shouldn't have read:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Am_Charlotte_Simmons
but I can only hope that the novel is an exaggeration.

I don't have any answers, but I do want to raise this issue out of the background. I remember reading an article that talked about the deeply held belief in the US that college is the means to a good life. To qualify as a bubble, the deeply held belief has to be a irrational. Here's one http://inflation.us/collegebubble.html

I think that sending kids off for 5 years of partying is irresponsible. I think that kids who can think for themselves, and go to college to work hard and learn while continuing to mature into an adult who can create a lifestyle that includes basic self-care, should definitely go, if they have the wherewithal to realize what they are getting into. Personally, I think I had much more wherewithal to see the big picture at 15 than most of my 18 year old 'peers' had when I got to college at 17. I think being HG helped me have more of a big picture, but it wasn't my only quality that helped me steer a reasonable course.

I think living at home while going to college seems much more reasonable for most college-aged people. When I read the 'insider's guide' sorts of books that describe the various colleges and read that at a particular school it's normal for students to avoid Friday classes so that their alcohol binges can start on Thursday night, I think is very unfortunate.

Love and More Love,
Grinity

I'm not a mod or anything, but I would like to remind everyone that sometimes it is hard to discern another person's intent just by reading her posts. I've had the experience of getting very worked up and later rereading the thread only to find that I had seriously misunderstood another person's responses.

I will also say that I didn't find anything PtP said to be offensive and it didn't seem to me that she was trying to put words in anyone's mouth or judge anyone else's experience. I, for one, thought she was making a pretty good point, which is simply that if a child is ready for college-level academic material early that does not mean that the child is less well-rounded than his or her peers, nor does it mean that he or she has been hothoused, nor does it mean that the child should be punished by not being given access to an available resource that would help him or her to learn appropriate material at an appropriate level. If other children who are academically advanced have not needed early college, that doesn't invalidate PtP's point that it can be a valuable and appropriate resource for some children.

We do encourage people to talk about their experiences, but sharing opinions is not the point of this forum. Particularly when the opinions are stated in a way that any native speaker of english would recogize as an attack, such as:
If you truly wanted an answer to this questions, you might have posted:
I'm confused, would someone be willing to share their reasons for having their 10-13 year old attend College?
Accusing other poster of attacking your views isn't helpful.
E Mama - you have posted so many helpful and kind posts on other topics, this thread doesn't fit the high expectations I have of you at all.


I propose we all take a step back from this topic for 24 hours.
Sleep well my Dear Ones,
Grinity

My post was not intended to attack anyone. I should have clarified more, I agree. I am hearing a lot of opinions on this forum, so I don't know why my opinion was a problem.
I did not intend, at least in my heart, to offend anyone. I do feel others have been rude and have attacked me and twisted what I said.
I am not interested in participating in this thread any longer. Good luck to you.

I have found this thread facinating (just in general, but even more so with the added intrigue of some personal tit for tat). There are a lot of factors I hadn't considered in terms of radical acceleration. DD could well need it from an ability perspective, possibly not from a personality perspective (though she's only 5, so perhaps I'm thinking about this too soon). For me every perspective is interesting. I have to say though that I feel Potatoes has been given a rough ride. She's made a choice that others obviously feel are not right for their own families for various reasons. However she has made a decision that she feels is right for her family (and, frankly, one supported by pretty much all research I have read).

I for one am grateful for hearing another perspective. It seems to me Potatoes is being judged by people who are not yet in her shoes (given their children's age) and who are telling her that her decisions (which they have not yet had to make in full and may never have to) are wrong, when clearly they aren't because her child is happy and fulfilled. Horror stories no doubt exist. Howvever I've seen (lived) what happens at the other end, when people go through a lock step schooling and loose out completely as a result - but there are so many factors to such stories. While I am interested in hearing all stories, none are as clear cut as radical acceleration = suicide. There is so much more to people's lives than their and their parent's educational choices.

One of the things I was horrified by when I became a parent was that people were so judgemental of each other and with so little appareciation that we're all, really, making it up as we go along. Us more so than many other parents. What quickly became apparent to me is that we all make decisions about what suits out own families. While Potatoes has pointed out some flaws in others' arguements, I don't feel they have been anywhere near as personal as the attacks on her decisions. I am very impressed by her capacity to stand by the decisions she and her family have made give that even WE are dismissing them. Imagine the fortitude it has take to make those decisions in the face of day to day life. I think as well if you read Potatoes' comments in the context of what else she has posted in the past - this is not someone who pushes their kid. This is someone who takes their child's lead. If you don't think your child would benefit from the the same choices, make different ones (which you obviously are - and more power to you).

At least there is much less of this in real life. Part of why this thread has been interesting to me is that this sort of negative stuff isn't something that seems to happen in real life a lot. So, I'd hate for anyone considering the early college option to fear that you will be confronted with negative comments all the time. If it is truly the right path for your child it will be obvious to the people who know them in real life. And, then you will be more likely to hear something like "It must have been rough to be confronted with the need to make these decisions, but you handled it well."

Really? What would a native speaker of English think of the responses to my posts in this thread (pp. 12ff.)?

http://giftedissues.davidsongifted.org/BB/ubbthreads.php/topics/91742/12.html

I expected disagreement, and got it; what surprised me the most was the predictions of a terrible future for a child the posters had never met.

Yes, there is a lot of judgement happening here. People are clearly judging my post and opinion (some without reading the full thread).
Let me point out that my comment on this thread was posted before passtp made any comments. So, my comment had absolutely nothing to do with her or anyone on this thread. It is an opinion that passtp has taken personally. My comment was not directed at her or anyone here. My comment is coming from our family position based on our personal situation that involves having a child graduate h.s. radically early. Based solely on what I have read here, I do not see that there are that many families here that have kids who will graduate h.s. younger than 13. It is not even clear to me that passtp has a child that went to college younger than 13 and if she did I have no ill judgement of this. That is her family choice.
If you would like to make judgements, how about reading the full thread from beginning to end. I am also not the one who was insulting other people.

E mama, I read this post and also felt very offended. I replied to this way back on page one and then went back and edited my post because I felt that it was possible that I was reading something into this that was not intended. I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt, but really, as someone who is sending their child to college early there is really not any way to read this without being offended. A statement like this is usually not posted on this board where most of us seem to very non-judgmental of others' choices.

I think we all have much more in common than not on this board and have a lot of valuable experiences to share.

What do you find offensive? By the way, I was referring to children under 13 years of age and made the mistake of not clarifying that. I am not putting anyone down if they choose to send a child to college under the age of 13,but I personally do not agree with that choice,however, I would try to understand the choice. No one on this thread has claimed they have a child that has gone to college full time under the age of 13 (have graduated h.s.).
I find 15/16 young and worrisome, but I don't think attending college full time at 15/16 is the same as under 13. I should have clarified this as I stated earlier. If that statement offends you - sorry. It was not written to offend. It was written from a place that is terrified to send our under 13 year old son to college (not because we think college is dangerous).
CFK , I do find your statement that people here are not judgmental here untrue.

I agree. Ironically the only naysayers I have encountered about decisions I have made for my son have been on this board. For people that know my child, there is usually no problem understanding why we do what we do.

I think that there is a lot to be shared in all respects. Not just my kid is uber brilliant and went to college at 11. Parents of younger children would like to know, really know, how you handle the other aspects. Because puberty is a big issue for all kids. Their bodies are changing, their brains are really changing.

There are more issues than "this kid really loves to learn so I must accomodate" involved. There are multi shades in the PG spectrum alone. You can go from 150 IQ to 200 IQ. There were 7 or 8 in that IQ group with IQs in the 200 range, worldwide.

But the discussion really helped me look at options and perhaps think a path I might not have considered because of this discussion and others who were adamant about no early college at 15, will find themselves sending their now 5 year old to college at 14. And Val may be sending her kid to college right after high school. No year off for the peace corps. (literary license Val, so please let it go).

The point is, that sharing our experiences, whatever they are, give us insight to what are options.

Someone just lent me books on the "gifted child". They were like books we all read as we started on this journey. But we find out that our kids are all very different and even with similar IQs require different environments to make them happy kids.

So in the interest of disclosure and sharing, I posted in this topic about our 15 year old girls being sexual targets. And Potatoes, I took offense at your response. It is because of my own experience. Being at home dating high school boys is not the same as being young, in a dorm, where you don't expect older boys to act as they might, since they are older. Rape is real and an issue for younger girls in college. Boys they might have gone out on a date with but they do not realize the social changes of 15 to 18.

Although there are kids entering college at 11 or 12 and living at home, I think the majority on this board are looking at kids entering a year or 2 earlier, living on campus. These are things we need to prepare for long in advance so that our kids can be safe and enjoy their college experiences, even as younger entrants.

Ren

That's what I was talking about - giving the benefit of the doubt. I took offense where none was intended, that's why I went back and changed my post.

I found it offensive becuase it was such a concrete statement. You didn't say that you saw no point in your child going to college early, you saw no point in any child going to college early. As you don't know my son and our circumstances, that came across as judgmental of my family's decision.

If I posted that anyone who doesn't allow their child to go to college early are denying them of an appropriate education then I would probably offend you since you have apparently made other choices.

And that's why I don't often find this board judgmental. Most posters here are careful to coach their replies in terms of their own child.

My bad, it was a sloppy post. I will be much more clear next time. I was writing it in a rush which is usually not a good idea.
I am not judging your family choice in any way. How could I? I do not know your family : )
I am speaking from our family perspective.

I totally agree -- you weren't addressing any specific individual. You were, however, perceived (at least by me) as taking a broad swipe at the early-college decision in general.

And it is also one that (I suspect) many here have taken at least somewhat personally.

Imagine treading into a Waldorf forum over yonder and saying something akin to "We have no intention of letting him play with felt. There are so many things one can play with that I do not see the point of having a child, regardless of their intellectual ability, playing with felt. We are interested in raising a well-rounded young man not just one who plays with felt."

If suggesting that an early-college choice would result in a child who "just excels in in reading, math, science etc." rather than in a "well-rounded young man" is not just a tad judgmental, then I need a new dictionary.

Dandy

Great analogy Dandy.

(and for the record I love felt I hope nobody is going to criticize it!)

There are more issues than "this kid really loves to learn so I must accomodate" involved. There are multi shades in the PG spectrum alone. You can go from 150 IQ to 200 IQ. There were 7 or 8 in that IQ group with IQs in the 200 range, worldwide.

What is this? There's 7 or 8 people in what group with iq over 200? http://www.kids-iq-tests.com/IQ-scores-201-210.html. What group? Spill the beans, lady. Peace and love.

Well Hippy I can see why you might take this as personally insulting since, well, it was personally addressed to. �I wonder what happened to old Jane Smith?
You should have seen the insults they gave me on another forum. �They made me cry. They presented themselves as the kindest, gentlest, most intelligent mothers but the way they treated me was reproachable. � I wish I could show how blatantly nasty they were to me, but that forum removed those threads to protect their company's image. �I thought it was on a level with cyber-bullying. �I googled and cyber bullying was something else entirely. �What it turned out those gentle ladies of that forum had actually done to me was a form of workplace bullying.
I'm saying this to say I hope nobody here feels like I felt when they did that to me.

What we have here is a very open forum in that the moderator doesn't censor stuff to make the conversation flow a certain way like other forums do. �He seems to be providing a great service of allow free and open exchange where it would be hard for us to ever have met each other otherwise. �

What I can recommend is that anyone who feels personally insulted speak up clearly and quickly as you can do so coherently. �Try to say what you feel and what you need and not say much about the other person. �
"Strangers making terrible predictions about my parenting choices makes me feel like a tornado has formed inside my skull. �My chest tightens because I have enough variables to line up in making decisions that I'm angered when someone uses another persons story to tell me how mine will play out. �I need to be judged in the context of my own life and my own situation. �I need my statements to be interpreted and responded to in the context of knowing vaguely who I was that said it (by spirit if not by name)."

Thank you. �Thank you. �Thank you for letting me let that out after all this time.

La Texican, if you ever feel like anything's going to rupture, please seek emergency medical attention first, and post afterward!

That was precisely the "forum" I had in mind when offering my analogy.

Besides what has been touched upon here - well roundedness, getting into the college of choice, finances - is there something that specifically terrifies you about early college for your son?

Ironically Dandy, there are people in this very forum that have criticized the Waldorf theology. How do you know there are not people here who prescribe to that way of life/education?
Again, you chose to pick one of my comments instead of looking at the entire thread. Clearly, there is no point in one trying to defend themselves or their ideas because once this crowd has decided they are "offended" it is relentless grilling. Hmm, I would say this is a type of bullying (many ganging up on one). So, my opinion is different than yours. Yes, our family does think that kids under 13 years of age is too young for college- we can't have that opinion? Our family would never try to interfere with another parent's right to do what they feel is best for their child.I clarified my first statement throughout this thread, very few have read this but have focused on what they want to, to continue to "attack".
I guess it is okay to be harsh with people if you are all on the same side.

Looking from another perspective, I have had various experiences in dormitory life across top schools in the US, including experience as a graduate resident assistant.

There are some universities where I would trust any kid age 15 and older, even a girl(!), and others where I would not. The adult support network and the experience that these schools have with younger students is very important. Some schools have the infrastructure in place and some don't.

At the school where I was an RA, we had many students who were starting age 15-18, the girls actually generally did much better than the boys did. One generally didn't remember that they were so young, whereas with the boys it tended to be more obvious. Of course, some of this could be because the boys in our dorm were more likely to have diagnosed Aspbergers. The girls who tended to have problems tended to be the ones who were the average age for their grade.

I went away to public boarding school for gifted kids when I was 15. That was MUCH MORE oversexed than college, apart from fraternity systems.

I can't say what Wren's personal experiences are, but high school boys and college boys tend to be equally oversexed in my experience, but college boys have more self-control. Rape is a serious problem and one that is better addressed on some campuses, high school or college, than others.

I don't have much experience for college students under age 15. We did have kids as young as 13 (all boys) at my boarding high school and they did just fine.

I thank you for asking CFK. I think I would have been willing to share and seek advice, but honestly I have felt completely attacked on this thread and now do not feel comfortable sharing our situation. I do appreciate your willingness to try to understand what I was trying to say.

Do you have any suggestions or tips for what parents should look for? What sorts of questions might be good to ask to determine if the school will be supportive or not?

Thanks for saying that. I hope the thread will move on to something else.

I removed the original post because it was so poorly written and it clearly hurt and/or offended people. I do not want to put something out there that causes this kind of grief.
If I post again I will make sure my posts are representing my ideas clearly!

I am aware that I probably cut and pasted a section of this article a tiny bit larger than I should have. Here's the real research by smart people who did research.

http://www.davidsongifted.org/db/Articles_id_10177.aspx

The students who enter college early are a highly selective group. They have exceptional intellectual abilities. In addition, the fact that students are aware of the possibility of early entrance and enter these programs suggests that they have unusually interested and supportive families or teachers. Early entrants may be outstanding in other ways, such as socially or in their level of confidence and maturity. Researchers may eschew the research findings reported below because of the selectivity of the samples studied. It is probably true that if a random group of academically qualified high school students were put into an early entrance program, the results of these investigations would be different. But, as Benbow (1991) points out, accelerative strategies are not for every gifted child and it is appropriate that students self select themselves into these opportunities. Self selection really entails matching a child's needs, personality and abilities to the characteristics of a program (Benbow, 1991). Early entrance programs, especially those that offer radical acceleration (i.e. four years or more), have continuously refined their selection procedures based on experiences with students to ensure that participants can do college level work and adjust socially. They try to choose students who will succeed. As Southern and Jones (1991) point out, most accelerative options, including early admission, are administrative arrangements to accommodate students who have mastered material at an earlier than usual age. Candidates for early admission are usually very obviously different from other students and both positive and negative findings regarding early entrants are as likely attributable to these differences as to the early entrance experience itself (Southern & Jones, 1991). This said, the research supports that early entrance to college is an appropriate option for some gifted students.

[Contents of this post have been graciously removed by the author in light of similar actions taken by others.]

de�mand�ing/di&#712;mandiNG/Adjective�
1. (of a task) Requiring much skill or effort: "she has a busy and demanding job".�
2. (of a person) Making others work hard or meet high standards. More ��
Dictionary.com Answers.com
Merriam-Webster The Free Dictionary


I think there's a big difference between bullying and demanding. �I (hope) the kind of people who don't like to let stuff drop, who keep digging and digging, are not bullys but are perfectionists twords themselves and others. �Asynchronousity is a brat. �On top of all that the gifted are often overly sensitive. �Diversity. �Tolerance. �Peace.". Welcome here. �WeLove U. �
I'm going to continue to make an effort to clean up my Grammer, reign in my fiery personality, show a little more pride in my work and let my inner adult come out to play. � Wish me luck and have a little patience.

I hope the kids aren't this misunderstood. Parents have to be the adults, have a little more thicker skin, put a little more thought into it. Hey. Maybe gifted parents need a support group to talk through these things.

Now I wish I could delete what I said because I was trying to promote a mindset that was more considerate of each other as well as tolerant of the facts but now I think I just like to talk too much and probably didn't need to say what I said.

In general I am pro-acceleration. One concern I would have about sending a very young student to college that I have not seen mentioned yet is that he or she might be able to handle the academic work during the school year but not be able to get summer internships. Do companies shy away from hiring students below age 18? Even if companies are willing, does the student have some of the practical skills -- for example the ability to drive -- that may be needed for a summer job? I have read that good summer internships are important for landing good jobs after college. Often students will get jobs at companies they were summer interns at.

If the youngster will very likely attend graduate school after the B.A., summer internships may be less of a concern, but if he or she intends to work immediately after college, the summer internship question is more important.

I asked DH today if he had known any MD that had graduated really young, Dougie Howzer kind of thing. He said in his whole practice of 80 hospitals in Boston and the surrounding area, he never encountered one. He said there was a thorasic surgeon who finished resdency (6 year residency he said) around 27.

He said that just the patient interaction, medical schools wouldn't likely admit anyone really young just because the scores are good.

Those kinds of things are also a consideration. What law firm is going to hire an 18 year old? Any one know of one?

Ren

Here's one that gained admittance to medical school at a very young age. Granted, it's just one, but then I wouldn't expect to find many people capable of this. But it can be done.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2003-08-24-prodigy-school_x.htm

Yes, but that was 1 and then said a 17 year old graduated in 1995. That was 16 years ago. And he is just starting. If you have 1 in 20 years, that is really rare.

And he was admitted to the combo PhD program, generally geared towards research, not patient care mostly.

Not saying it never happens, but the difficulty of getting into medical schools or law schools young may be difficult.

ren

I don't disagree with you - there are very few and it is rare. But then so are truly profoundly intelligent people.

I agree that med school is a field where much younger grads may face more difficulty with admissions than they might in a subject like physics. Everyone's options are different. It may be that for some kids who are finished with college by 16 and 17 they have more options than they did at 11 or 12. Older teens may be more able to travel, work, enter a master's program before med school, etc. Options that will be engaging but weren't a good fit for a preteen or younger teen.

I don't think they only choose some brilliant people. DH tells me stories about medical school. He remembers some office where the women heard yogurt was good to put in the vagina. They used strawberry and all these women came into emergency with rashes. One, it took some level of maturity not to laugh but also you had to examine all these women. Can you imagine being one of those women and a 14 year old boy tells you he is going to examine you? You get some indigent people who really smell and have pussed up huge blisters and ulcers. It would have been really hard for me at 14. These are as medical students, not interns or residents.

And if you did get a job at a big law firm or investment bank, how the hell are you going to entertain clients?

Does it mean that options are seriously limited if you want to radically accelerate? And truly, I do not mean this to inflame. I am genuinely thinking and playing devil's advocate to provoke healthy discussion.

Does radical acceleration limit a chid's options in the long run?

Ren

I don't look at it that way. Here's the way I look at it: whether or not radical acceleration limits my child's options, he has no choice. He could not have survived a traditional elementary and middle school education. He could not survive four years of highschool in order to enter university at a socially appropriate age. He cannot cease his pursuit of knowledge. That is not an option for him. Whether his course in life is harder or easier than most doesn't matter. He is who he is. If I was the parent of a developmentally delayed child I would not expect him to subscribe to society's schedule. I don't expect my child to either. He has to follow his own path.

Do I believe radically acclerating him will limit him? No. Holding him back in school or not allowing him to learn would have limited him.

This has generally been our experience, as well. People who actually KNOW our child (and us) think that we are very much rational and pretty conscientious without being terribly push-oriented. At least not more than is warranted by her particular blend of personality characteristics.

And she will be in all college coursework, probably before she is fourteen, since I am not seeing what else to do with her last two years as a high school student at this point in time.

What Grinity said (back several pages even from the quote above) really resonated with me, both as a parent, of course, but also as an insider from academia. Colleges which are "no place for especially young students" are very often not exactly healthy environments for students at traditional ages either. I've seen that play out so often that it literally makes me weary to think about it.

I would be extremely reluctant (at this point) to have an 18 year old child of mine live and attend school in such a place without access to parental guidance or any safety net. Yes, there is some sort of cultural rite of passage there, certainly-- but far too many children now have no one to catch them when they begin to fall. Times have changed from when we went to college in the 70's and 80's. (Er-- and 90's, I'm also guessing. )

It's a 24-7 world of social media and pressures, which leaves little time for the scholarly, deliberate pace of things that we tend to recall as normative. I'd not be averse to having a traditional college student live at home while attending college their first two or three years. Not at all. That goes at least quadruple for an extra-young student.

It's hard to imagine all the minutiae that are involved in a child that young actually doing things intended for older people until you've tried a few of those things. It's complicated. For a child even as young as 13 to attend college courses, often a great number of hoops have to be jumped through, and the child may have to have an affidavit of empancipation in order to live in dorm housing (since colleges are prohibited from acting in loco parentis, but obviously a child who is under 16 is VERY clearly a minor and not legally responsible for him/herself). Complicated.

As for internships-- YES, this is a HUGE problem. We've run into this already with DD at the middle school/high school level. There are competitive paid internships available through our land-grant institution's Land-Sea grant programs, but many require the applicant to be a minimum of 15 years old. Some require a drivers' license. All require the student to still be enrolled in high school. Ergo, most are not things that my DD will ever be eligible to apply for. Others, there will undoubtedly be issues regarding the insurance policies related to laboratory or field work.

<back to catch up further>

I hope nobody minds if I bring back the first post for a minute--Frenchie and I have been mulling over ideas similar to Val's for a while, and I wondered if I might just pop a couple of thoughts out there. We're a few years away yet from facing these kinds of decisions, but it never hurts to do a little advance research!

(Frenchie and I both headed to university a couple of years early ourselves--he lived at home, while I was seven hours from my folks--we both had good experiences, but we find it helpful to think over a wide range of possibilities, given that we have three kids who are very different from one another, and, like most people here, I'm sure, we may well need more than one solution.)

We've wondered about some online university classes as a way to get feet wet, or taking a course or two at the university where I taught until Harpo was born. Although we're in Canada, we're also wondering about maybe doing some A-levels--Harpo likes the looks of some of the subject areas, and thinks he might really enjoy digging into some of those topics in depth. (Since we homeschool, a regular "high-school diploma" is not really happening here anyway, unless we change our minds and decide to enroll them, so we are possibly looking for some other kinds of potential credentials, as well as learning experiences.)

Some other possibilities are a year or two away, with programs like United World Colleges (http://www.uwc.org/) or Katimavik (http://www.katimavik.org/ ; this program is just for Canadians, I think, because of the way it is funded) or some kind of language immersion experience (http://www.learningfrenchinquebec.com/academic_year.aspx); we think Groucho in particular would love this kind of thing.

We have also wondered about helping the boys find some mentors; we know a lot of people with pretty interesting work, and we wonder if somehow we might set up some kind of apprenticeship, as it were. Harpo, for instance, is very interested in endangered languages and in archaeology, and I could see some kind of extended "field school" possibilities there, maybe? Groucho is theatre-mad (at least at the moment); if that interest continues, we know people with whom he could engage in an extended job-shadowing/apprenticing type of situation. (David Albert's books are quite interesting in this regard, I think--I loved the way he and his wife found mentors for their daughters over the years.) Chico at the moment, however, wants to be the first man on Mars, so I don't think I can help too much there!

Groucho also likes the idea of taking a year or two first and getting really good at a trade, so that he can always pay his bills, even if the acting work dries up--that kid thinks ahead!

Anyway, just thought I'd toss a couple of ideas into the mix...

peace
minnie

Yes. It isn't perfect, and I don't think any of us that are "pro-radical acceleration" are saying that it necessarily even "good" in a general sense-- just that for our own kids, it's least-worst.


For kids that "don't fit" anywhere anyway, that is, sometimes there isn't a better answer.

This is probably not even true for most PG kids, but for some sub-set of them with a particular blend of personality quirks and learning needs.

Sorry, just thought I touch in here - I didn't mean to imply that people in real life were judging early college entry decisions - just that when I first became a parent I was shocked at how much parents judged eachother (breastfeeding, bottle feding, routines, attachment parenting, controlled crying, red-shirting, extra-curricular choices etc - you're always doing the wrong thing according to someone, when really most everyone is just trying to do their best). Apologies for any confusion!

DS's school had open house this week, and after visiting his 6th grade classroom we stopped by his old 3rd & 4th grade classrooms where his same-age peers are this year. I can't even begin to contemplate life for him in either of those classrooms. This serves as a keenly pointed reminder of why we choose grade-skipping for the kid. We'll deal with college when we have to, but for now we had no other viable option.

Thankfully, this didn't come up for DC20 or DC17. I'm not sure either of them would have been ready for living away from home without a structured program like PEG.

My own experiences were pretty good overall--much better than being at grade level (alternated homeschool and traditional school at grade level depending on where we were living at the time). Rather than leave home before 18, I audited classes at the local university (no credit, so I could stay a freshman for scholarship purposes later), attended weekly department lectures, and did research (started around 10). It really helped me to keep going intellectually without having to move away/give up scholarships/pick a career that early. Around 15, I started shadowing, doing more substantial research, and interning away from home for a few weeks a year (on my own or staying with family).

It was a good set-up for full-time enrollment in my later teens, as I was able to pass out of most introductory classes/some upper division classes and take a wider variety of classes at a higher level without giving up scholarships and a chance to attend a rigorous college.

As for MD-only and MD/PhD programs, I'm in an MD/PhD program right now. My medical school class had some kids as young as 19 or 20 when we started medical school, some of whom had taken a year or two off after college to gain more clinical experiences (problems volunteering during college due to young age). It seems to have worked out well for them, and they will still be able to finish medical school relatively early.

Kids are typically almost 6yo when they enter 1st grade and thus 22 = 6 + 12 + 4 years old if they start medical school immediately after college. One MD/PhD program http://www.umassmed.edu/mdphd/academics/faqs.aspx says student typically finish in 7-8 years, which would put them close to 30. One reason I support acceleration and early college is that
highly gifted students will often pursue graduate degrees, and I think they should be working, marrying, and (maybe) having children before they are 30 years old.

Wow that's wonderful to hear Dottie-Dear!
Yippee!
Grinity

Gosh Bostonian. We've had enough stridency on this topic already, don't start going

"they should be working, marrying, and (maybe) having children before they are 30 years old."

said with a smile.

Ren

Well, I do strongly believe that people should be entering the "real world" before age 30 and will guide my children accordingly. I put my son in KG at 4 and will put my daughter in KG at age 4.7 partly for this reason -- they will each by saving a year, the way I look at it.

Here's how this parent solved some of the issues of early college:

http://www.kget.com/news/local/stor...ege-together/TqKzZDOyvkmB6x4n58y1_g.cspx

But I do not understand why she is going to Cal State Bakerfield next and then to law school? Why not to law school now?

In the U.S. law schools require incoming students to have a B.A. or B.S. degree, and they weight college grades heavily in admissions. So do medical schools, although there are a handful of 6-year medical programs not following a 4+4 schedule.

Someone who does not understand the basics of the how the American educational/credentialing system works needs to do some background reading.

I do NOT think aspiring lawyers and doctors should be forced to spend 4 years getting a B.A. before professional school, but I have not been made king yet.

I thought the article talked about how she and her mother are graduating college.

I assumed it was a college not community college, which in my opinion is no different than AP courses in high school or worse.

Ren

The point was that this mother found a way to allow her child the opportunity to start college classes at a young age. This might be an idea for some others who are hesitant about their child being alone in an environment with older students.

Not sure what you mean here? You mean that all community colleges are just glorified high schools or worse? I think that many community colleges offer very good programs at the freshman/sophomore college level. Did I misunderstand?

Val

After looking at education stocks, that is my opinion.

Wow. There must be some kind of judgment demon haunting this thread. I like this forum because the level of discussion is usually pretty much head and shoulders above any other public forum I've found on the web. So I've been pretty surprised by what I've read here.

One person wrote an opinion, which others appeared to take as a opportunity to get offended rather than debating civilly like grownups. She tried to qualify what she said, but this didn't have much of an impact for a while. One person (who I would normally expect a lot more from) even announced that we aren't allowed to state our opinions here. We can only talk about our experiences. Oh, okay. Nice.

I feel like I've been watching a bunch of mean popular girls pick at another girl who wears glasses and unstylish clothes. This is not my opinion. I am only reporting on my experience.

Now we have absolutist blanket statements about a couple different things, like all community colleges are at best as good as high school AP courses. Nice.

I'm sorry I started this thread. The saddest thing of all is that I did it because the one who was getting picked on asked me to because she was looking for alternatives for her child when s/he finishes high school and she was hoping my ideas might be a good starter catalyst. So much for that idea.

There is obviously a deep source of angst about this topic, and it's understandable. Anyone who sends their kid off to college at age 15 or younger is going to be seen as pushing their child by some administrators or the jealous/competitive parents we all write and read about here from time to time, and maybe even seen as damaging their child in some way. It's bound to make people a bit touchy and defensive.

Then E Mama's post came in with some judgmental-sounding language, with (in my humble opinion) predictable results. To a lot of folks here it seemed like she was picking on people who send their kids off to college early. I think in the end E Mama is a class act, who merely touched on a hot-wire issue by voicing her own somewhat strong opinion, and did her best to clean things up in the end. There's nothing really wrong with conviction, just as there is not with making one's best attempt at solving educational problems for outlier kids-- and I bet that if everyone here had been in the same room, with benefits of voice inflection and body language, things would have de-escalated much sooner.

I agree with you about opinions not being out of line here. I don't think Grinity would generally scold someone for voicing an opinion, though. She tries to step in when she thinks people are getting too aggressive or insulting with each other.

(My opinion is that everyone's emotional IQ could use a boost here. I am wholeheartedly of the opinion that all of us in this thread could, with the proper training, become emotional geniuses enough to never take offense in any such thread. Will we ever discover those perfect teaching methods? Perhaps not. Until then, we limp along as well as possible. I think some good points were made, along with the distressful statements.)

Hello everyone,

It's taken me a while to go through this thread, but I think it's a good idea to close it at this point due to personal arguments that have veered off from the original topic of the thread. I also deleted a number of inflammatory posts in this thread. I do agree with some opinions that some statements in were made more to stir up the pot than anything else, and this trend has been increasing lately.

I'll be working on updating the Board Rules in the near future to give more specific guidelines than what is currently there (in the bottom left corner).

Referencing Val's statement, "I like this forum because the level of discussion is usually pretty much head and shoulders above any other public forum I've found on the web" - we want to keep Gifted Issues this way, and we'll do everything on our end to do so.

Please send me a private message if you have any questions.

Mark