<p>If you have a highly gifted child, what choices have you made regarding time spent in high school? Did your child spend four years in high school? Do you think it makes sense to keep a student in high school (taking APs or concurrently enrolling for individual college courses) instead of starting full-time college early? Has anyone had such a child do a foreign exchange gap year? Our 8th grade son will start high school with 18 high school semester credits because of middle school acceleration and online courses. He enjoys mathematics but tests higher in reading (97%ile vs. 88%ile on ACT compared to high school seniors). Because our state has a public boarding school for gifted 11th and 12th graders, I think we can keep him challenged through four years of high school as long as his initial school allows him to take AP courses early. I think they will. I also think he would enjoy the challenge of learning a new language and living in a different culture as an exchange student. He hasn’t wanted to accelerate because he enjoys team sports and band. Do you think it would be a mistake to let him stay in high school for four years and do a gap year for an exchange and start college at 19 when he could easily be successful in college (and accumululate enough hs credits to graduate) at 16?</p>
<p>Our daughter went into HS as a mid year sophomore. Graduating early was not an option for us. She loves her high school life (as much as kids that age love anything) and it was a good decision for us. I can’t imagine a 16 year going into college and being socially successful. Academically maybe, but socially…not a chance.</p>
<p>“He enjoys team sports and band”</p>
<p>Some highly gifted kids are nearly tortured - socially and academically - by staying in a standard high scoool environment. At this point, you child doesn’t seem to fit into that situation. Does he want to do a foreign exchange? </p>
<p>If he continues to enjoy sports, band and other activities…and isn’t bored in school…why accelerate going to college?</p>
<p>My brother is a professor at Harvard who was obviously brilliant from birth. He started kindergarten at 4 and then was put ahead again in elementary school. He graduated at 16 with very few friends and no social experience-- he was physically and emotionally two years behind the other kids. He used alcohol to try and fit in socially in college and almost killed himself with alcohol poisoning.</p>
<p>My sister in law was in the same boat as her husband, my brother. She went to Tulane at 16 and came home after breaking down from pressure to drink and have sex.</p>
<p>Do not push this kid into college–social experience is as important as academic challenge. Wait!!!</p>
<p>It all really depends on what your family’s options are financially. There are amazing programs where you can spend a high school year abroad (jr. or sr.) like School Year Abroad. Expensive, but they do give lots of scholarships. There are great day and boarding schools in many places for highly gifted kids. Again, many offer scholarships if they’re not affordable. He can be challenged by summer enrichment programs like RSI and TASP. There’s Stanford’s EPGY on line which offers advanced classes.</p>
<p>There are many, many options.</p>
<p>Re. Does he want to do a foreign exchange? </p>
<p>His older sister is currently on exchange in S. America with Rotary between her sophomore and junior yr of high school. She started hs at 13 due to being promoted from K to 2nd grade. Younger brother enjoys foreign language study and is intrigued by his sister’s experience. He would do a similar exchange but would be a year older because he chose not to accelerate in elementary school.</p>
<p>My daughter started college at 16 and it’s been great for her – she’s now a 17 year old college sophomore. I can’t really imagine (nor can she) how being in high school still at this point would be anything but excrutiating.</p>
<p>But it varies with every kid. I’d listen to what your kid is telling you as he progresses. It’s not something you can predict when a kid is in 8th grade.</p>
<p>Bard College at Simon’s Rock </p>
<p>“I can’t imagine a 16 year going into college and being socially successful. Academically maybe, but socially…not a chance.”</p>
<p>Simon’s Rock is a school in Western Massachusetts that specializes in giving college level courses for students beginning age 16 (and sometimes younger). It is a fully accredited college. I went there for my first two years of college, then transferred to an Ivy, as do many Simon’s Rockers. Others stay for all four years. I had a fantastic experience. Simon’s Rockers have gone into all kinds of fields. There is very little of snobbery, but the same high quality education you’d get at an excellent prep school, or a very good lib arts college.</p>
<p>Simon’s Rock was started by Elizabeth Hall, who had been headmistress of Concord Academy, and observed that for many students, gifted included, the last two years of high school are a waste of time.</p>
<p>My DD whose test scores in jr high were similar to your S’s decided she wanted to stay in our local charter school. Most of the academics weren’t challenging. She just threw herself into academically-related (and a few non-academically related) extra-curricular activities. The tough part was having teachers, particularly in language, who knew far less than she did. Also the science and math wasn’t as advanced as most of the people that she has wound up with, at the Ivy school she is at now. </p>
<p>Gifted kids get really short-changed in our culture, particularly in High School. We throw away a lot of money stuff that is far worse, but that’s another topic. </p>
<p>Good luck to you. The most important thing will be your willingness to support your S.</p>
<p>I really agree with the advice NOT to accelerate your son (and my parents insisted upon me skipping my last two years of HS and beginning college at 15 1/2- super bright, yes, but I felt so alone in college). My eldest tested off the charts at the age of 5, was home schooled with many mentors until skipping 7th grade and entering 8th- I knew he was not mature enough to go away to college after HS graduation, but his father and extended family insisted. He ended up coming home mid-freshman year and finishing in stages over a period of years. My D is the real over-achiever; excells at everything from all academics to soccer to music. I wanted to accelerate her, but she balked, staying with her friends and taking advanced courses and graduating, as she should have, at 17 (she turned 18 the week after we left her at college). She feels that the last two years of HS were far more benficial than the first two, and NOT because of the courses. Her thoughts- that was when she learned how to deal with her teachers without help from Mom, it allowed her to branch out and make friends from other “tracks” in school with whom she had not had classes and it gave her time to try out new things and make decisions regarding her future. She’s a performance major, so she had the chance to work with community groups and participate in school activities she hadn’t done earlier. I now have a daughter who is poised, confident and able to handle herself in any situation. She knows not to get involved with the alcohol/drugs/sex which have ensnared classmates who were shielded at home and sent to colllege years younger-chronologically and emotionally- than is usual.
Wilners’ comments about his brother and sister-in-law are as true today as they were years ago- those things are still present and maybe even more of an issue today when everyone looks older than they are!
The fact that your son enjoys the same extra-curricular activites as his peers is wonderful and speaks volumes about your good parenting skills and his ability to integrate his intelligence with things appropriate to his age and physical abilities. Just keep on doing what your’re doing, it sounds like he’s on the right path and will let you know if he needs any adjustments to his current course!</p>
<p>I’d recommend not. Think about it; there are probably thousands of kids as gifted or perhaps even more gifted than your son that go through high school.</p>
<p>I think going through high school, excelling, and developing friends and social skills will be very valuable. </p>
<p>Success in this world isn’t just knowledge. Being able to interact with people is too valuable a skill, and high school is a big development of that.</p>
<p>My kid thrived on being accelerated. And he has not done drugs or alcohol, or ever showed the least sign of depression. Actually, being allowed to take APs in middle school probably kept him from getting into mischief. </p>
<p>He went into high school with two of the hardest APs. Once in high school, he continued taking APs and also took college classes. By the end of junior year, he’d fulfilled all the graduation requirements and would have had to take all college classes during his senior year so he graduated one year early. He was used from an early age to being with kids far older than himself; it did not bother him in the least as they were the people with whom he could relate intellectually.</p>
<p>There’s no one right answer. I’ve known kids (including my own) who while academically capable weren’t chomping at the bit to graduate early. Mine is doing well as a junior at Carnegie Mellon. I know another young woman who chose to graduate from high school in three years and spend a year in Europe on a Rotary. She did not get the college acceptances she might have if she hadn’t been in such a hurry, but she graduated from college early as well and is now in law school at Duke. My husband’s Harvard roommate started there at 15 and did very well, I believe he graduated summa cum laude and is now at Microsoft. I also know students who went to Simon’s Rock which is designed to provide a college education to younger students. I myself, graduated from high school at 16, having skipped first grade, and going to a good prep school, applied to college as a senior, but planned a gap year where I spent a year abroad and then went to college.</p>
<p>Luckily you don’t have to make these decisions today. There’s no one right answer to these situations. Depending on what your school system offers, and how mature your child is socially as well as academically, the best solutions are likely to become clearer.</p>
<p>My son was happy to stay in high school, but only because he was allowed to take AP courses as early as he chose, was able to take classes at the flagship public university while in high school, and–perhaps most significantly–was very involved in numerous activities outside of classes that he enjoyed immensely. He made many friends through those activities, and gained a lot of experience directing projects, working with groups of other students, working closely with adults in and outside of the school system, and even traveling around the state speaking at research consortium gatherings.</p>
<p>If we had lived somewhere where none of those opportunities were available, he would have left high school early. I am very glad he was able to get such experience before he entered college. He had no difficulty whatever adjusting to either the academics or social pressures of college life. He has been allowed to move through the curriculum at a very rapid pace, and has been involved in research since the beginning of his freshman year. Since his university granted him considerable advanced standing on the basis of his hs record, he will have completed a master’s degree at the same time as he finishes his undergraduate degree with two majors and an unrelated minor. In the end, he will have accelerated, but he waited until college to do it.</p>
<p>However, I think he benefited greatly from living in a college town where gifted students are not a rarity, and school personnel at the high school level are not hostile to the needs of advanced students. (Let’s not talk about the elem. and middle schools, though. We decided to go with a private school for several years to get around roadblocks in the middle years.) If you don’t think your son has appropriate opportunities, or if he seems unhappy and bored, then of course your situation would require a different approach.</p>
<p>A resource that may be helpful if your son is eligible: </p>
<p>[Davidson</a> Young Scholars](<a href=“http://www.davidsongifted.org/youngscholars/]Davidson”>Davidson Young Scholars for the Highly Gifted | Gifted Program) </p>
<p>Having a specialized in-state program for the last part of high school might be something to look forward to. That’s eventually what my son stayed in state (and on age track for graduation) for, the dual-enrollment program here in Minnesota. We’ll know how our decisions affected his college admission chances in a few months. He has some good choices already in hand from the early action round. </p>
<p>The absolute, number-one thing I advise for teenagers is finding them nurturing, thoughtful, unrelated adults who can guide their development in their interest areas. Some schools provide that, but if a particular school does not, find those adults some other way.</p>
<p>Tokenadult makes a good point. Part of the reason my son was happy enough at high school was that they allowed him to start taking APs as a freshman and he was happy to spend lots of time teaching himself computer programming after school and/or working for pay or doing programming as volunteer work.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>How could that be a mistake? Your child is enjoying their life, what more can you ask for? My child chose four years of high school because he loves theater. These past four years have rocketed by and we have not one regret about listening to our kid.</p>
<p>In my experience, the key is to stay flexible. My son’s freshman year of high school he was dedicated to the three year plan. Sophomore year he changed his mind. Then Junior year he was invited to apply to a college early and skip his Senior year. He very nearly did it but changed his mind in the 11th hour. This year he takes classes at the community college in the morning and at the high school in the afternoon. There are so many options. </p>
<p>We provide love and support, the rest is up to him.</p>
<p>As a current HS junior, I think it depends on the high school. If his HS is challenging and he likes it, I would say it would probably be better if he stayed for three years. But if he finds his HS boring because all the classes, even the APs, are rote memorization, I would recommend he graduate in three years. At my HS, I feel that classes are simply rote memorization and hence get really bored and disillusioned even though I am quite involved in ECs. So if his HS is like that, I would recommend graduating early as he will very likely get bored and lose motivation.</p>
<p>The social aspects some of the above posters post above might happen if a 16 year old tries to blend in with 18 year olds in college. But if he only graduates a year early (instead of two), he will be 17 and I don’t think a years age difference is going to matter. And on top of it, it really does depend on the person. I’m sure there are some 16 year olds who are mature enough to handle college well both academically and socially just as there are 18 year olds who are not mature enough for college.</p>
<p>My preference is for him to take advantage of the best courses that our mediocre public high school has to offer for the next two years before he leaves home for an exchange program and/or the two year boarding school. He is so charming I’d hate to have him leave home sooner. It’s just that our local high school is so bad. 80% graduation rate, average PSAT 131, SAT 1000, ACT 21…It is a very diverse school and there are some students who are relatively strong academically but last year there was only one NMSF and three commended out of a class of over 700. I feel a little guilty that I am holding him back by keeping him there longer than necessary, but I’d miss him if I encouraged him to just spend one year there and then leave home. His older sister started high school at 13, spent two years at the local school and is now on exchange. She will go to the boarding school next year. I’ve missed her terribly this year and it’s hard to think that she won’t spend much more time at home. S2 probably meets the Davidson Young Scholar criteria because his talent search scores have always exceeded the eligibility criteria. We just have never been able to afford IQ testing and haven’t found anything good to submit as a portfolio entrant. I do suspect, however, that if S2 met the criteria, he would be on the lower end of their applicants. I suppose that is a good thing because as talented as he is he can still get along with average kids. The difference between S2 and D1 is that after we saw how bored S1 and D1 were in middle school (they were in the same grade), we fought the administration to allow S2 to replace some classes with online high school classes so while D1 will probably be an AP National Scholar by the end of her junior year, S2 will probably do so by end of sophomore year. S1 has taken a different path and combined college prep classes with computer certifications in repair, networking and server so he has found enough to keep him busy at the local school all four years. I’m just trying to figure out what S2s options are so that I can help him consider them and make the best choices for him.</p>
<p>“There is no one right answer.” So true. Our gifted son began kindergarten in a Sept cutoff area with a later fall birthday. He was able to accelerate with multigrade classes and technically never was a 4th grader. He therefore got to be “top dog” with the 5th graders in elementary school and took the usual years in middle and HS, graduating at 16 with 9 AP courses, 39 college credits, starting at his public U. He was well liked in his elementary 3/4th grade class- other students were excited for him to join them the next fall as a 5th grader (we weren’t telling- but his next seat neighbor looked at the report card distributed in class and noted the grade to be in next year, so of course everyone found out). Our son became a varsity cross country runner on a team with around 50-60 each boys and girls teams with an active social life from that (many also did winter running and spring track). He was in a large, good orchestra program as well as participating on math and other academic teams. His needs were met in our blue collar city and summer WCATY GT classes. He had no problems with starting college at age 16. His peer group was the cohort he went through HS with, not his kindergarten classmates or agemates. Now applying to grad schools.</p>
<p>Another gifted city student did her 9th grade language and geometry while an 8th grader, transported for these at her district HS. She did Wisconsin’s “Youth Options”, spending both of her HS senior year semesters taking classes away from home at UW-Madison before attending an IVY. </p>
<p>A relative in Indiana could have attended their 2 year boarding school for gifted kids but opted to stay at his local top HS- sports and social connections being the reason. He’s at a good private college now.</p>
<p>These are 3 different scenarios meeting different needs of gifted kids. We were lucky to have schools with strategies for teaching gifted kids, now even improved over our options. Being gifted is defined by not fitting into the one size fits all model, and everyone has different strengths. There is no way to meet both academic and social emotional needs perfectly as there are not the numbers at any one level of giftedness (an IQ of 170 to one of 140 is just as vast a gulf as one of 140 is to 110) in any locale.</p>
<p>For you- do not let age mean not attending college at an early age if your son wants it. College kids don’t care, a student’s social readiness depends on his past experiences- mine had the full HS one. Early entry is NOT pushing, but rather not holding a child back to conform with the majority. Future plans have to be flexible, changing with the child’s development. Be able to look back, not at a perfect childhood for your son, but a good one. Optimize the academics while letting him be a child. Hindsight will always show you options you could have taken, but don’t worry about them. Enough time spent and said by me.</p>
<p>Is there any possibility of his attending another school in the district or seeking a scholarship at a local private school?</p>