<p>My staid ideas about education? Do you always insult people who don’t agree with you? And do you know or are you a member of this family? </p>
<p>I wonder if you even read my post? As I wrote, <em>I</em> was accelerated. My mom limited my grade acceleration but I was grouped from 4 to 6 years ahead. (For example, I took geometry at 5 years of age with the school’s most accelerated math class. At 16yo, my college placed me in grad classes.) I graduated from a good state flagship (not one of thecountry’s top flaghips) but did not have the opportunities that many of my relatives did who graduated from ivies. (Some of them were also accelerated but less so.) In my field and in that of my relatives (different fields), the name of the alma mater matters. I can’t imagine accelerating a kid to graduate early from a school where the average SATs is about 500. The truth is that employers really don’t care if an employee is younger than the norm— assuming they are old enough to work-- but, in some fields, the name on the diploma matters and the opportunities at a school like Harvard do surpass the opportunities at most state flagships and certainly surpass the opportunities at small, local colleges.</p>