JonA, I thought I would relate my experience since our sons entered High School at the same age. My son was classified as home schooled but actually entered Florida Virtual School for high school at age 12 and we had planned on doing the dual enrollment at the local community college. Unfortunately a lawsuit here in Florida in 2010 resulted in most (including our local) community colleges to put age restrictions on dual enrollment students (must be 15 or 16 yrs old). This forced us to look at the early admissions option (part of the dual enrollment program) at the local state university (which said they had a 16 year age limit but didn't actually have one published).
Most universities don't require a High School diploma but they do require a minimum list of classes to have been completed even for early admissions. For a University that is part of the Florida State University system it was the following (and is the same for most Universities that I reviewed)
Specific high school course units are required for admission as a first-year student (an academic unit is a non-remedial, year-long course):
�4 units of English (at least three with substantial writing requirements)
�4 units of mathematics (Algebra I and above)
�3 units of natural science (at least two with laboratory)
�3 units of social studies
�2 sequential units of the same foreign language
�2 elective units, preferably from English, mathematics, natural science, social studies, or foreign language areas
So we altered our plan and my son finished those courses (All honors and API except for his 2 years of Chinese, and all A's) applied for early admissions with a letter from his Virtual Counselor and started the University in August 2011 full-time with the state picking up the tab. He has now been accepted as a First Time in College (FTIC)student this fall (Age 14), with a year and a half of credits, and will be a junior at the end of the Fall semester and hopefully a senior by the time he's 16. The state will still be picking up most of the tab, because in Florida we have a state sponsored scholarship call "Bright Futures" which contributes to a students education if they stay in the Florida University system.
The plus side of all this is that he has been fully accepted socially by his peers (most of who don't know his age) and is extremely active in campus activities. He's already making a name for himself in his classes as the "guy to go to for help". He is planning on getting a Master Degree in Computer Engineering with the University's 4+1 program combining the BS + MS degree, and then applying for a top tier school. We didn't do the top tier school application right now because: 1. Felt he was too young for living on campus 2. Looking at MIT, they wouldn't have transferred most of his credits so he would have been an actual entering Freshman. 3. Cost (almost free versus a small fortune). Hopefully he can get into a top Graduate school for a PhD at 18, with the school picking up most of the tab.
So if your son is mature enough, I would say go for the local state university and leave the top tier schools for grad school.
