<p>This is a really lively discussion and I got a lot of great input.</p>
<p>I’ve compiled what I thought were the valid pro and con arguments for accelerating children through education. I left out any arguments I thought focused on the particular academic and non-academic ideologies of the poster or the family. Some posters thought all children should go to top schools but I don’t regard that as necessary for my kids and the reality is that with 20 million students attending colleges in the US, less than 10% will be in the elite schools. I also left out arguments relating to homeschooling and the gifted since I regard that as not the situation I’ll likely ever be in.</p>
<p>One of the top questions that I hadn’t considered was the quality of the colleges. I stated in one of my earlier posts that I didn’t think going to a top school all that important.</p>
<p>Con
MommaJ
The colleges are not top 20
How well prepared they are academically or where they’ll end up in life?</p>
<p>Pro
jonri, julliet
The child who is completing an MS in Computer Science is getting it from Troy a respectable public school.
The child that became a Navy Doctor attended a DO program. Lots of American kids can’t get into any medical school.
The oldest went to Auburn University Montgomery, the Montgomery campus of Auburn. She majored in mechanical engineering and is an engineer now. The second went to the California College of the Arts, and works as an architect. The third one went to Huntingdon College and then med school; she’s a Navy physician now. The fourth one just finished a BA in English at Huntingdon and is now doing an MS in computer science. Two of their children are currently in college now at Faulkner University. The latter two colleges are religiously affiliated, but they’re not bad colleges or diploma mills, just not famous. The truth is, most students across the country (whether they are 12 or 18 when they go to school) don’t go to Harvards and Yales; they go to places like Huntingdon or AUM.</p>
<p>jay555 brought up another issue I was really interested in: whether the children could know what their passions were at so early an age. I’ll have to do research on that but I do know that most college students change their majors 2-3 times while in school and many graduates end up working at Starbucks or a supermarket.</p>
<p>dodgers322, PolarBearVsShark brought up the issue of fitting in college but from the interview I read the kids had no problem assimiliating into college life though of course drinking and doing drugs was not really part of their curriculum.</p>
<p>Finally, thank you, ucbalumnus for another example: [At</a> just 14, UCLA math student Moshe Kai Cavalin has written his first book, ‘We Can Do’ / UCLA Newsroom](<a href=“http://newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucla/at-just-14-ucla-math-student-moshe-229359.aspx]At”>Newsroom | UCLA)</p>