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.
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.
