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While your other concerns about skipping a grade are things that you may want to think more thoroughly about, I would take this one concern off your plate. Our dd, too, will be in the spot of starting college shortly before her 17th bd. Some of the better advice we got when making the decision to skip her, though, was that we should consider what was in her best interests right now and not try to look at what might be the best in the future. None of us has a crystal ball that would allow us to see how this is all going to play out in the long run.

Going to college at 16 was a worry of ours before we skipped DS. But now we're working on a "gap year" plan. Somewhere, likely for a year in high school either at the end of high school or in the middle, we will either homeschool and travel or he'll do a foreign exchange program or take an internship and research or something along those lines. Lots of families work with a gap year and have different ideas how to make this work.

I want DS to have the full dorm, college life experience that both DH and I had. But I don't want him to have that at 16! So he'll have time to do something bold and different that he wouldn't otherwise have.

I agree with CAMom and Cricket2: I'm actually thinking the gap year thing might be a plus, not a minus for finishing earlier than the norm. Think of the opportunities! Foreign travel. If you have a science-minded kid, there's time for some research. If you have a service-oriented kid, he could work for or even create a non-profit. If the child is an entrepreneur, she could start a business. A writer could write.

So many really amazing possibilities...

I understand how difficult it is for you to make this decision; I hope my experience can help you. My Ds1 was advanced academically as a child, when he started kindergarten he read at a fourth grade level and math was at a third grade level. He tested into the school gifted pull-out program (waste of time), and at the time I thought it was fine. I did not pursue any sort of grade acceleration and he progressed through elementary and middle school with a straight A average. He never studied; school work was easy for him, he received a lot of homework, but it was always easy. We moved to a district that had one of the best high schools in the country, and the average student in that school performs above level. Now Ds1 had no study habits whatsoever, had never really been challenged, as a consequence, high school was a disaster. I finally pulled him out of school at 15, homeschooled him for a year, had him take the SAT's, ACT and subject tests, and he is in college now (at 16). His study habits have improved, but I strongly believe that the lack of challenge during his formative years were detrimental for his academic growth, and I don't think he will ever recover. If his social life can be managed, I would strongly advise you to do the two year skip. That way he will be challenged, it will make him happier, raise his self-confidence, which may in turn make him more social. If the school will allow him to do advanced work with his age group, that would be great, but that's not to be trusted 100%. Ds1 second grade teacher allowed him to do 4th grade math and 4th grade reading, which was great, but when he went to 3rd grade (same school), he did 3rd grade math and 4th grade reading along with his entire class (every grade had reading 1-2 years above grade level). So if the school will do in class subject acceleration, try to get it in writing.

I would try to get as much as possible in writing, whatever your choice in the end.