Have any of you (or your children) skipped a grade?

Pre-College Topics Home Schooling
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<p>I too was in this situation. Because of medical reasons, I did not attend regular school from after Christmas break in the 8th grade until high school graduation. I was technically an independent study student in our school district’s (excellent) hybrid homeschool program (<a href=“http://www.pchs.k12.ca.us%5B/url%5D”>www.pchs.k12.ca.us</a>). Anyways, I graduated at 16, was 17 when college started, and thus am always a year younger than my peers. This has only presented three problems that I can think of.

  1. I couldn’t sign any of the contracts at school by myself because my signature as a minor wasn’t valid. A minor inconvenience.
  2. Since I was a minor for my freshman year, and I won’t even be 21 until after I graduate, many a times I have had to stay behind as my friends went to the bars or cigar bars. Small dent in my social life, thought it has saved me a lot of money :).
  3. Finally, I hate having to explain why I am a year younger than my grade-level friends. Just because I graduated early doesn’t mean that I’m a bookworm geek who thinks Calc 3 is a walk in the park. When people find out I am young, I have to get into a long conversation about my private medical issues (really no one’s business) and my unique “high school” education. It’s just a real ordeal so I do my best to avoid this conversation by hiding my age from most people. I even have “aged” myself by a year to a few people just to avoid going down this road. It’s not that I am embarrased by my accomplishments at all. It’s just that it’s all a long story that I don’t neccessarily feel like sharing with everyone. </p>

<p>Despite these things, I wouldn’t have changed anything. High school blows, and college is amazing. I couldn’t imagine being cooped-up in high school (or at home, in my case) for a fourth year of boring, required high school subjects. College is everything I hoped it would be, so I am so glad that my early graduation allowed me to attend all the sooner.</p>

<p>Oh, and I forgot to add that I also started attending a community college when I was 15. When I graduated from high school, I had over a semester of college completed, and now, I can actaully graduate from college early as well. Community college, in my opinion, is a far superior choice to the AP classes offered at high schools.</p>