Having a young-for-college student living WITH parents is a very different ballgame than having one who is living away from home, too.
That makes it easier in some ways-- but it also can make it harder to resist the temptation to over-manage.
You have to be willing to let them make some pretty big mistakes-- and then prod them to fix it FOR THEMSELVES, even if they wish that you'd step in.
That can be a hard thing, as a parent. If it were her high school, I'd be on the phone. I'm still on the phone-- but it is with my daughter, to get information from her on the results of meetings intended to solve problems.
Big difference. She has the maturity to do this for herself-- (PG social skills) but not all kids do. She also lacks some of the executive skills to keep everything under control all the time without some weekly scaffolding. We do that, because that was part of the plan all along-- as noted, it sounds as though ndw's plan is similar.
Do be aware that community college systems can be incredibly overburdened in some state systems-- and that required prerequisiste coursework may be very difficult to get into in such systems. This is a huge problem throughout all of higher ed now, by the way, but it is most extreme in the junior/community colleges. There, a student might have to wait a semester, or even a full year, to get into a calculus course.
I think that how much of the decision-making and research to allow (insist upon?) from a hg+ early college entrant depends a lot on the student, but Val's points are very well made, IME.
If your child's college isn't "her/his" idea, how well is that going to go over? With my DD, the answer is "it wouldn't."
Which is why she didn't apply to some of the top tier schools that we'd encouraged her to consider as good matches. At least we knew enough not to push it, with her. {sigh}
