A couple of pps addressed my last comment so I'm just going to respond without quoting them all. Yes, I worry about perfectionism and yes I understand being the straight A student going into a high performing uni and falling apart. I had a lot of other reasons than that myself (personal and family) at the time, but I went into Berkeley at 17 having never really experienced the need to work and fell apart my first semester.
That is why we agree to skip a child with a fall bd in a school system where redshirting is common. She was already more than a year younger than some of her classmates and is as much as 2.5 yrs younger than some of them now with just the single grade skip. The work level has not been appropriate in most subjects still and she gets As pretty easily.
Where it has been appropriate has been math and in the quantity of work, which was huge for her in middle school. Going into high school, the counselors told the incoming class to expect five hours of homework/night if they are taking pre-AP classes. Dd is not only taking pre-AP biology and literature, she is also taking a second science class as an elective in order to accelerate more in science and has a heavy load of other core classes. She is not a fast kid. She could not handle any larger of a work load than what she has now, so further acceleration is not reasonable for her. Even if what is holding her up is speed and too much busy work, it is what it is.
I also stand by my statement that I would not want her in a position where the best she could achieve with her full effort is high average. I want her in a spot where she has to work to achieve highly (all As if that's what she wants -- and she does -- and upper 90s on achievement tests if that's what she wants -- and she does). Pre-skip she was getting straight As by writing papers in the car on the way to school and winding up in the 99th percentile of everything for just showing up on test day. While she's still in the 99th in a lot of areas, she has to put in a little work at least to be there. And, in some areas, she has to put in a pretty good amount of work to maintain in the accelerated class (math).
