Question about taking non-dual credit college classes during high school

PurplePlum
Mon, 11 Jul 2016 14:18:48 +0000

The safest course of action would be for her not to graduate early in order for her to have ample time and opportunity to work on her studies and EC’s such that she will be at her most competitive upon graduation.

Since you all have raised excellent points, I have made an appointment to discuss this further with her school counselor. It is interesting that her counselor had actually recommended that she consider graduating early. Though this counselor had no data or information on the ultimate success of early graduates in terms of getting into competitive colleges, etc. because she said that extremely few students graduate early from the high school–it is rare.

I definitely will talk with my D about exploring other enrichment options for after school. Though we will still have to deal with what to do to make her sophomore year more challenging during her school day so that she has something to look forward to when she goes to school. Maybe we could sub in an extra AP class for an elective.

I do think that she would be mature enough to handle early graduation and would be fine on her own at college, since she would be 17 at that point. Having said that, I guess you never really know how a kid will react to it until he/she is in the situation. But I completely agree that we would need to choose the college wisely.

Thinking this through with you guys has really helped me decide on a course of action. My plan is to focus on what can be done to challenge her in 10th grade and see how things go. We don’t need to decide on an early graduation plan until the end of 10th grade. Though truthfully, I think she should stick it out for the full four years.

And mommdc, I have heard the same that Georgia Tech does not give much merit. Thanks to lurking on CC for many years and learning about how to fish for merit, we were very fortunate in that my older D received very generous merit offers from some amazing schools. I am planning on using a similar strategy of seeking merit for this D–hopefully we will have similar success.

Thanks again for all of the thoughtful replies! They have all helped!