My son started high school this year with several credits-- counted toward GPA and graduation-- already. The biggest con I've found is a really small one: the guidance department had palpitations trying to do his schedule this year, and we had to pull him out of a magnet track we were ambivalent about anyway to make his classes fit. For example, he's in freshman honors track in one subject area, sophomore-to-junior level in another, and in another class is in with honors-track seniors. Throw in a must-schedule extracurricular and we had the freshman office in knots.
Pluses: he's a mature kid for his age and likes being in classes with friends who are juniors and seniors; likes his "math geek" status; is able to handle the pressure of being the youngest (and hence sort of having a target painted on him) in class. He'll be taking dual-enrollment classes with the local college next year in a couple of subjects, which I won't have to pay for. He has all his graduation requirements out of the way in two subject areas as of the end of his freshman year, so he can take either more honors/AP classes (if he wants to pad his GPA) or more dual enrollment, or extra music classes (which he enjoys), or just a couple of fun classes-- IOW, he has a few more choices than most. Thus far he's got an unweighted 4.0 (I think it's 4.67 weighted, since some of the things he's done haven't carried quality points) which ranks him a solid first in his class. And it's honestly been pretty painless. For him, anyway, it was a really good call. He might do one or two more, depending on how busy his summers get.
eta: the issue of mature outlook is a valid point. I think my son makes connections that are subject-appropriate, though. He's thrown functions into casual conversation (elaborating on a very non-math point I've just made) with a facility I couldn't have managed at forty.
Last edited by eldertree; 08/31/12 04:59 AM. Reason: added last paragraph
