Placing out of classes at Caltech

texaspg
Wed, 14 Jan 2015 17:19:29 +0000

some upper level math and physics courses at the local university for fun and even those are really not challenging him

With all due respect to your local university, there are only a handful of schools out there which work like Caltech for science and math classes. It is quite possible that he may do 3 advanced level classes and find that it matches one quarter class at Caltech.

Since they are giving an opportunity to place out, you could look into that summer before starting, assuming he gets admitted which by no means is guaranteed.

OTOH, schools like MIT and Caltech seem to allow people to apply without having to graduate from high school. So he could always apply as a junior and see what happens.