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

PurplePlum
Sun, 10 Jul 2016 13:41:06 +0000

If D were to graduate early, she would have to double up on some classes in order to do so. Thus, she would not be graduating early because she has maxed out of the options at her high school (other than the math options, which she will max out on). Though she has dealt with not feeling challenged in elementary and junior high schools, she thought once she was in high school and taking AP’s that she would be fine. And this may be the case as she progresses. However, her push to graduate early (and she has been pushing us hard on it) stems from the fact that her freshman year was mind numbingly, not challenging to the point that she would just sit there and zone out during class. She achieves perfect grades with very little to no studying and while she of course did the busy work associated with her classes, she said she felt she was not learning much and said it was painfully boring to have to sit in class in general. We are new to our school district and I was not expecting her to feel so unchallenged in this high school, especially based upon the great reputation of her new school. I guess it took me some time to realize that her challenges stem from being a quick learner and really, she would have the same issues no matter which high school she attended.

Your point is well-taken mom2aphysicsgeek and that has been my concern from the beginning. It would be one thing if she needed to graduate early because she had maxed out on all her subjects. However, she just wants to be done with high school in order to move on to college (with the expectation that she will be challenged in college).

I will speak with her about becoming active in the AoPS forums and about taking their online classes. You definitely have given me a lot to think about. My gut tells me that she probably should stick it out and not graduate early. I just need to figure out what we can do to get her more challenge for this upcoming school year in particular, since she will only be taking one AP class and the rest honors/pre-AP. I am mostly concerned about her getting through her sophomore without going nuts with boredom. I suspect her junior and senior years will be better as se takes more AP classes.

And thanks bookworm for the suggestions on the colleges that have early admission programs. I have just begun researching this as well. I will take a look at the colleges that you mentioned.