<p>What does he want? </p>
<p>I join the chorus saying it sounds like a bad idea. I don’t see how that year of public high school is going to help him stand out from the crowd. If it is all about the ECs, especially not since he won’t be elected to the leadership roles because nobody will know him or they will already be filled. </p>
<p>Your S is a competitive candidate, but so are most of the other kids who apply. </p>
<p>My son got into Stanford, but accelerated a year, rather than repeating a year, graduating at 16. He did not have perfect test scores, nor a perfect GPA. He had several college classes under his belt (no APs offered at his high school), yet would never consider applying as a sophomore due to extra credits. Applying as a sophomore to your state college is fine, but in general, schools like Stanford don’t accept much of that credit. It’s just par for the course for freshmen. I also heard (not sure if this is true) that you don’t get the same financial aid consideration if you’re not applying as a freshman. </p>
<p>I agree with the others that taking 2 years to complete hs is not a great idea, esp when applying to top tier schools (unless he’s super young, like 15 or 16). He’ll have to explain why he did this on the common app. </p>
<p>Also-
<p>And let us say that you have him do a super senior year…and he still doesn’t get into Stanford. What would he think then?</p>
<p>“life-time straight As” < > 3.88 GPA.</p>
<p>“not a family of great means” but he is going to SOHS and participating in many ECs?</p>
<p>My son has been getting material from colleges since 9th grade. Marketing material means nothing.</p>
<p>What does your son want? It sounds like you are trying to leverage something or other. If he is technically a junior, let him have his junior year.</p>
<p>If he is happy, don’t change anything. But it is not clear to me his role in his education and choice of when to go to college.</p>
<p>It sounds like he will easily meet whatever high school graduation requirements by the end of this academic year - and then some. What’s the point, then, of extending his time in high school for another year? Most kids I know who need another year of high school are low-performing students, rather than high performing so this looks odd to me. I wouldn’t do anything just for <em>one</em> college. I certainly wouldn’t allow my child to do so. </p>
<p>Stanford is one of those lottery schools. This means that 6% (3/50) acceptance rate is about right. I don’t know if you can ever raise this rate to 100% but I suspect, doubling his time as a senior isn’t the way to go. He sounds more than academically ready to move to the next level - it may or may not be Stanford. </p>
<p>I don’t think doing a bunch of extra curricular activities with an extra senior year will make any difference at all. If anything it dilutes the positives he has. (Sports commitment.) Nor do I think a 2400 SAT makes much difference either. I think the sort of kids who are doing SOHS are the sort who will do the kind of prep and take the kind of care it takes to get a perfect score. Your kid is, like most kids who apply to Stanford, perfectly acceptable. His chances are going to be in the neighborhood of 5% unless he has something very special to offer. That’s not having hung around an extra year, that’s being a recruitable athlete, having academic awards well beyond the average, or doing an EC on a level that makes someone turn their head.</p>
<p>…nvm too ridiculous to post on.</p>
<p>This language also concerns me: “we could not require him to do both a full time load (40-50 hours/week) to graduate him in just 1 more year, and also ask him to strengthen his non-academic extra-curriculars and community service at any significant level.” <em>Require</em> him? <em>Ask</em> him? It certainly sounds like you are trying to push him into things to make him appear to be someone he is not. If he wanted to do these things, why haven’t they been <em>his</em> priority, why do you need to ask and require? </p>
<p>Too much helicopter parenting going on here. How will you handle it when he goes away to college? Will you still be this involved? At some point kids need to start thinking on their own and making some of their own decisions.</p>
<p>I feel bad for this kid. It sounds like he hasn’t had a chance to be a kid.</p>
<p>So is OP son currently considered a junior or a senior by the high school?
20 hrs of sports a week, in season is a lot I agree, but many kids my youngest included, do 12-15 hrs weekly year round, as they are in a different sport each season OR they play on a select team.
Sounds like he participates in sports at the local high school which is great, and he is going half time there while he supplements with online classes.
Would he be eligible to graduate from the high school next spring?
I agree with others that to manufacture a background designed to gain admittance to a particular school, is not the way to go.
While both my kids did begin to participate in additional activities through their high school senior year, they had begun those activities as freshmen, and it was just as senior that they found time to more fully participate.
But it was always their lead, and their interests.
They both took a gap year to further pursue their interests &/or get some space from high school, earn money for college.</p>
<p>Dual enrollment classes, may be the way to go to save money. Neither one of my kids did this, but for students enrolling at the local flagship, or even at schools like UChicago or Oberlin, friends were able to enroll as freshmen, but then see their classes bring them up to junior level status, saving a bit of money and time.
However, they had recieved a two yr aa certificate from the community college, while they were still considered high school students.
As soon as you are considered graduated, taking any college level course, makes you a transfer student, and is more competitive for both admission and financial aid.</p>
<p>The counselor at OHS should be able to direct you - I did know a kid who applied for colleges as a jr. at OHS and decided he wasn’t happy with his choices and went ahead with his sr year at OHS and applied again. That may be an option. Also it is a fallacy to think that going to OHS will get you a leg up at Stanford - it simply doesn’t. There was at least one year since it started that zero kids were accepted to Stanford. </p>
<p>Op,
A comment about AP credit. My D attends Yale. On the Yale website, she could get X units of AP credit which is something like 2 semesters of college. However, when she talks to her academic advisor at Yale about graduating in less than 4 years, they keep skirting around the issue. Apparently, even though it’s posted on the website that your can get credits (to graduate early), no one really does it there. My hunch is that it is the same way with Stanford. Usually the Univ of Cal schools are where the AP credits get used to graduate early or as a buffer to not getting a full credit load due to impaction. So to enter Stanford with the idea that your kid will graduate in 3 years may need a reality check with Stanford’s advising offices or with parents of alums.</p>
<p>My concern, as a home schooler, would be that colleges are going to interpret the move from home schooling, to full-time at SOHS, to part-time at SOHS as an indication that your son couldn’t handle it socially or that he’s too emotionally immature to handle the stress. I don’t think failing your son, which is effectively what you’re doing, is going to help on college apps. How are you going to explain it? Even if your son gathers all the credentials the other Stanford applicants have, it will still have taken him 5 years to their 4. I don’t see how that helps him. I’d approach the application process from a different angle. Instead of trying make my child fit into what I imagine a particular school wants, I’d be looking for a college that’s a proper fit for who my child is. I understand needing help paying for school. You may want to check the guaranteed merit thread pinned to the top of the financial aid page. Good luck. </p>
<p>I think Mom needs to be realistic here. Your entire plan is focused on the idea that your son is lacking in the EC’s and can make them up if he takes an extra year. Yet you also state that the admitees from your program had 2400 SAT scores and your son had 2210. You describe your son as a straight A student, but his GPA indicates closer to straight A-. How does that GPA stack up at his school? Is he in the top 10%? If you look at Stanford’s page on applicant acceptances, those stats are both on the lower end. Of course this doesn’t mean he is ineligible but I think you are kidding yourself if you think the only weakness in his application is the lack of EC’s and that he can come up with something comparable to what the kids being admitted on the basis of strong EC’s with a passion he discovers as a senior when asked and required to do so and spends 5 hours per week on. And how are you planning to explain to Stanford that he wants to go there so badly yet he chose to partially withdraw from their own high school program? </p>
<p>Oh my goodness, has your kid signed off on this? I mean, he’s 18 now right? (you said he was in his 3rd year at SOHS and he started at 15.) You want him to take another year of high school at 19? I’m just imagining what my gifted 17 year old, currently in her first year at the university would have felt if I’d asked her to repeat senior year. She would have exploded! </p>
<p>Are you positive those extra AP’s are going to truly count for something at the university? Many top tier schools don’t give you much for them these days. Some cap how many they will take and/or will only use them to get you out of lower-division classes as opposed to actual units. Not all high performing kids WANT to shorten their college stay. My own kid is freaking out over how to take every class she’s desperate to take before graduating in 4 years. She transferred in a year of college credit but only 3 actually got her out of GE’s… the others only help in majors she’s not pursuing (but she doesn’t regret taking the courses because she enjoyed learning about them.)</p>
<p>Like everyone else, I don’t “get” why you think doing this would help your S get into Stanford. You write:</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>What is that “estimate” based on? I think you’re just plain wrong if you think that doing 5-10 hours a week on ECs and community service for one year is going to change his college admissions results dramatically. </p>
<p>Is your S a good enough athlete to get recruited by Stanford? If so, it’s possible that an extra year of high school competition could improve his skills enough to make a difference in the probability of being recruited. That really is the only scenario I can think of in which your plan could be helpful. </p>
<p>“Superseniors” are not the same as PG students. “superseniors” complete HS in 5 years because they’ve been slowed down for one reason or another (ELL, LD, other disability, juvie, etc.) Any college would look at this as a sign your son wasn’t able to <em>graduate high school</em> in 4 years… let alone get into college… let alone Stanford.</p>
<p>PG years take place in boarding schools, after students have graduated, typically because a recruitable athlete needs to hone academic skills to meet an Ivy or D1 requirements, or because college admissions weren’t as expected (or the kid was shut out due to forgetting matches and safeties), or because an athlete need one more year to reach D1 level.</p>
<p>Gap years are well-recognized as long as they’re devoted to something in particular, something that matters to the student - volunteering, working on a project, etc. Also well-considered is a study-abroad year such as what CIEE, YFU, or AFS offer.</p>
<p>EC’s: the number doesn’t matter. What matters is that the student has a passion and made the most of it, or that he’s reached a (preferably) national level in something, if not, regional. This can’t be done in a year, ie., holding him back is unlikely to help. If he missed Olympics qualifications by 1 or 2 ranks and is willing to dedicate his time to trying to make the team, that’s one thing, but that’s not what I’m hearing here. Your son can dedicate his Fall to his sport, and Winter+Spring to any activity of his choice (volunteering, choir, rock climbing, FIRSTRobotics…) If the activity’s new, he’s unlikely to reach the high level of performance required by top schools but at least he’ll show he’s not a “drone” or a “robot” by doing things “just for fun”.</p>
<p>APs: top schools such as Stanford are fine with 4-8. Beyond 8, it doesn’t really accrue any extra value. In the same way, 2400 on the SAT doesn’t really matter as long as the kid reached 2200 (and in some cases, 2100 is sufficient). 2400, 2300, 2250,2200, 2180… yup, doesn’t matter. All make “first cut”. (Note that taking the tests too many times, however, is detrimental, since it shows the student doesn’t have his priorities straight. 3 times is okay, 4 times is excessive unless there’s a specific reason - not “I want to see if I can get more” but “it will give me a full tuition scholarship at my state flagship if I increase by one point”-, and 5 times is considered an example of “doesn’t understand what education means”.)
In addition, most top schools would expect their students to have APs. Therefore they don’t approximate first-year level classes, just “normal” high school preparation, and thus the first-year courses don’t cover the same material: AP credit is not granted. (AP credit would be granted, within a certain limit, at state flagships). In addition, it’s highly unadvisable to skip first year classes if one intends on going to med school.</p>
<p>Just curious to know what the parents decided to do.</p>
<p>Yale does not accept AP credits to accelerate. Can be used, in certain instances, to skip the lowest level class e.g. A foreign language. </p>