I think one question to ask yourself/your student is “do you have a passion for or even like math?” before putting them on an advanced math track. I have witnessed the real downfall of putting kids in a higher level math because they “test” well in middle school. My DS has a group of friends who are the brightest in his class. They were all placed on the high math path and it was miserable for several of them (my DS included). I believe two of his friends stopped at AcceleratedTrig because they hated math so much. We dropped DS down to Regular Trig and he barely pulled a B out of Math Analysis (pre-calc). What I determined is that many of these kids had no business on the high math path because they did not really understand the concepts, but were excellent at memorizing. As the math progressed and they to actually understand the concepts, they began to fail because their foundations were not solid. Some kids absolutely belong on a high math path, but I think they are the exception not the rule. There is quite a push to force what was once college-level math “down” to high school and I think many kids are being presented material that their brains are not developmentally ready to understand.