What we chose to do was to allow a bit of leading/independent projects and exploration in strengths, but compensated by hot-housing supporting (non-preferred) skills-- in DD's case, this included things like writing, organization, etc. She was expected to do academic activities that weren't what SHE chose or designed.
That way, she WAS ready to enter college when she was ready, though I realize that statement is vague.
It was at about 10yo that she (realistically) had outstripped the offerings in secondary in her areas of strength (literature, social science) and we supplemented those things by throwing college textbooks her way (I bought old editions on the cheap on Amazon). We considered community college (suggested to us by the local high school, incidentally, about that time), but realized that it was going to provide lackluster academics and few peers, unfortunately. It was cost prohibitive to allow for a la carte classwork at the local Uni (respectable enough-- it's the best research uni in the state).
Between ages 10 and 14, we basically kept her in something of a holding pattern in those strengths while she worked on the areas that still needed refinement to be college-ready. We weren't sure where the arc would terminate when she was ten, but we kind of kept an eye on what wasn't yet "there" and tweaked things as seemed needed about every 3 or 6 months over that 4y period. Mostly, we kept our fingers crossed on the points where maturity was a concern.
She could have done MIT/HMC at 15, I think (and certainly looked competitive on paper)-- but because she didn't have an overwhelming passion for anything in particular going into college, she opted for "free and local, but still highly respectable" instead. As aeh noted in the tandem thread-- our philosophy is that she'll almost certainly pursue graduate studies anyway, and so undergrad is just for accomplishing a general education foundation and figuring out exactly what she wants to do. No big-name school needed necessarily.
Again, I want to emphasize that while this "worked out" with DD15 being more than up to the task of a regular college entry (though she'll be living at home due to age/disability), we definitely didn't have that as a road map when she was ten. CERTAINLY not when she was 7. It could just as easily have turned out that she'd have needed one or more gap years when she finished high school-- starting into that college prep chute without knowing if the parachute would open in time was REALLY scary, and it's been a stressful four years.
We may have done too good a job making her look well-rounded, honestly. She still doesn't really understand how terrifyingly good at EVERYthing she seems to others.
Does that help?
