Sho what do you think HS and college in the High School Years.

[eloquence]

Dh and I talked yesterday about this. We both feel totally open to our children getting their college degree during their high school years if they want to.

What do you think the pros and cons of this would be as an 18/19 with a BS or a BA?

[Roar]

Pros:
Keep interest alive in a bright kid who is ready for college.
For a child with academic passion it allows them to pursue it sooner.
Avoid boredom or time wasting for a kid who was ready before many of their chronological age.
For a child intending on a graduate education, it offers a chance to get there sooner or pursue more degrees.

Cons:
Can be harder to get merit scholarships for a younger student.
Can be more work to negotiate admissions for a younger student.
May restrict child's choices unless family is willing to move.
Will make it more difficult to get into an elite college if that is important to the child.
Different social experience - typically means giving up the residential college experience.

[eloquence]

How do you think it might be difficult to negotiate admissions? Can you tell me more about that?

And what ages are your children that you HS? Are you dealing with this right now? If so, do you see them even knowing about or wanting an elite education?

Thanks, tiger. (My new nickname for you.)

[eloquence]

Originally Posted by Roar

Pros:

For a child intending on a graduate education, it offers a chance to get there sooner or pursue more degrees.

.

See this really was something we talked about alot yesterday. We are by no means going to push higher ed on our children. But we feel that we live in a world that has reduced higher ed to one more hoop to jump through before you can do what you really want and make a living. So college for the most part has become a hoop, not really about getting a good education.

So do we offer them to get that hoop out of the way? So they can go where they want and really study what they want to?

[Roar]

Originally Posted by eloquence

How do you think it might be difficult to negotiate admissions? Can you tell me more about that?

For one thing the child will be competing with older children who have simply had more time to meet requirements. If you want to have a child admitted at typical h.s. age that means they will have needed to do h.s. during middle school. As has been mentioned on this board earlier some community colleges specifically forbid enrollment by students under 16. Some schools may have supervision concerns about younger students and you need to deal with the assumption that the child has been pressured or isn't mature enough. Having good tests scores can help a lot with those. For all homeschooled students it helps to have some outside verification of work for example grades from online courses.

Originally Posted by eloquence

And what ages are your children that you HS? Are you dealing with this right now? If so, do you see them even knowing about or wanting an elite education?

My child is 10 and he has taken classes part time and will continue to do so. We would prefer that he not be fully admitted for a bit but we are preparing - he's taken a college standardized test and, we are putting together a transcript, so his options are open.

He is clear he doesn't want to wait and this is more important to him than attending an Ivy league school but of course he can't fully understand that set of choices at his age (though I'm sure the same could be said of many 18 year olds too). We are just looking for the least worst solution to let him study as he wishes.

Oh and this probably isn't the right place to ask this but as a general question, is there a way to turn off the flashing smilies and moving stuff in people's signatures. I find it really visually distracting when stuff is moving on the screen. Thanks.

[Roar]

Originally Posted by eloquence

So college for the most part has become a hoop, not really about getting a good education.

I agree it can be, but it really doesn't have to be. Some students find really interesting and meaningful things to do as undergraduates. The opportunities are there for students who really want to learn.

[True Blue]

Roar-- Go to User CP, Edit Options, then down to where it has boxes for signatures, avatars, etc.

[Roar]

Originally Posted by True Blue

Roar-- Go to User CP, Edit Options, then down to where it has boxes for signatures, avatars, etc.

Thanks True Blue, that worked! MDC has done a great job developing this site.

One more question...is it possible to get the flashing smilies that are appearing on the right side of my screen to go away?

[dharmamama]

Originally Posted by eloquence

What do you think the pros and cons of this would be as an 18/19 with a BS or a BA?

Honestly, I can't think of any pros. College coursework that is sufficiently academically challengeing can be pursued at a young age without actually completing a degree.

The cons are:

How many employers would be willing to hire an 18 year old with a degree but no work history?

How many employers would be willing to hire someone for an adult's job who is just barely beyond being a child?

Losing out on the "total college experience."

Lacking the maturity/life experience to fully comprehend/appeciate things that are generally taught to older people.

I am not saying that any or all of these things would happen to every child who gets a college degree while still a young teen. However, I think that each of them are distinct possibilities with very real negative consequences.

I see absolutely nothing wrong with taking college courses while "high school aged." But I probably would not let my 14, 15, or 16 year old become a full-time college student.

Namaste!

[eloquence]

Originally Posted by Roar

Oh and this probably isn't the right place to ask this but as a general question, is there a way to turn off the flashing smilies and moving stuff in people's signatures. I find it really visually distracting when stuff is moving on the screen. Thanks.

You should try coming on over to my home. :

[Roar]

Originally Posted by dharmamama

Honestly, I can't think of any pros. College coursework that is sufficiently academically challengeing can be pursued at a young age without actually completing a degree.

Namaste!

This may not apply depending on the student, but a couple of things about this approach may be worth considering... Some homeschooled students wrack up a bunch of credits only to find out that they have to transfer them and they lose freshman standing necessary for many merit based scholarships. Schools vary in what they require but many will require credits to be transferred. Also it can be a lot more expensive to take classes part time than full time because there may not be financial or merit aid options. Students need to also be aware of the pitfalls of taking courses that will be required later - for example taking intro to chemistry. Some schools, especially good ones, accept few transfer students. It may work better to focus on courses outside of the normal sequence though this may not be appealing to a student who has specific interests.

[nolonger]

dharmamama's speculation has been our experience. dd is $12,000 in debt to her grandmother and the two have not been on speaking terms for seven months. She would very much like to continue her education but it is almost impossible for her to find minimum wage work and to save for the tuition. Her grades are abysmal so she is not eligible for any scholarships, although she can retake the courses to improve her grades.

My ds has no problem at all doing college level work at home. Since he can use older editions of the textbooks without it affecting his grades, it makes the difference between spending $150 for a (c) 2005 book and $1.50 for an older edition.

Early college enrollment can and has worked for other families, but because of our social caste/income tax bracket, it was a very, very foolish mistake on my part and I have nobody to blame but myself.

I'm not going to talk about this any more.

[eloquence]

I know you don't want to talk about it anymore.

But if you do, I have some questions. I don't think I understand what happened with your ds and how we can learn from it. Is she studying at home or did she go off to college and rack up that debt with her grandmother?

And what do you blame yourself for? How can we learn from your families experience?

Again, no pressure but I just didn't understand the nuances of your post.

[LeBoof]

I may have a slightly different viewpoint here. Not as a mom for a change but as someone who did get put into college early. I went to a private school and when I took my Iowa tests they told me that I couldn't learn anything else from them. I was 14 at the time and state law for where I was said that I had to have approval from the principal and one other principal from another school, a member of the board of education and the dean of whatever college I decided on. I also had to go to one year of highschool (age15) at the same time as taking college level classes. I'd already taken my SAT's when I was 12. These days that and a cup of coffee get me less thirsty.

The pros:

I LOVED learning and the challenges that college gave me. I'd done homeschool, private school and public school and this gave me something that I'd never learned before. A chance to learn who I was,how to be more independant and stretch my own brain even more than I was used to.

I went part time for a lot of the time and was able to get a scholarship when I first started just because I was young. I think it was through the Elks lodge, but it was sponsored by a coworker of my moms'. I worked my way through the rest of my classes by doing tutoring and some TA work in the highschool (it was legal as long as I was in college slightly more than half time). I got a full time job by the time I was 18. Good work ethic

Most of the basic classes do/did transfer to other colleges.

I had the chance to meet some very interesting people going through a community college that I would never have had the chance to meet otherwise.

The coolege administration knew my age and were easily impressed by it so I loved the kudos I always got from that (is that a good thing?)

The cons:

Usually I downplayed my age to the profs since the few who ever knew my age seemed to believe that I really should be in highschool even though I was getting A's and B's in their classes.

Dating didn't happen. I was around others who were my peers in every other way except that they were going through a more mature stage of emotional development than I was ready for (kind of). Basically I was way under 18 and I went to a community college where one of the guys I'd been tutoring (who knew my age, but didn't tell anyone) was getting ribbed for being the baby of the classes at 18.

The biggest thing for me was the burnout factor. I'd been having to go part time for a really long time and it didn't seem to be getting me anywhere. I had to take some time when most people would have been graduating and go work/live in the real world to figure out what I really wanted to do. I finally have a much better sense of who I am and have gone back to college (again!). This time I'm actually sticking to it though and getting my degree with a plan as to what I'm going to do once I've got it. I should note that I did know 2 other kids who were going to the same college I did. They also suffered from burnout. In their case it was because everyone put a lot of pressure on them to be perfect and always do well in their classes. Stress like this caused one of them to have an ulcer at 13.

Strangely enough I really wouldn't change anything that happened (expect that maybe I wouldn't have dropped out from college when I did the first time). Going through highschool and college at the same time that first year I came to understand exactly how differently highschool students and college students are treated. In highschool (even the private school I was in) you tend to get into trouble for asking questions and being outspoken. In college it is not only encouraged, but expected. I'm now a very outspoken person when I want to be (ok, sometimes pushy) and it usually gets things done. I'm 32 and have 26 acres that will be mortgage free in 3 years because I learned to plan when I was young and that sometimes you have to be willing to know what things you are willing to give up if you really want something badly enough (I lived in a tent for about a year on the property). I've met people that I will never regret meeting, and because I was so young it left an even deeper mark than I think it would have otherwise.

I'm not sure that a four year college is right for someone who's very young (I took some classes at a 4 year colege when I was very young too). A community college is more likely to have adult students who have more life experience and that is really the best thing to take away from it all. For most students though I think that taking dual credit classes through a college is probably the best way to go.This way they can have the social interaction they are already used to, it helps ease them into the college rythym (every college has it's own), they still have parents to fall back on if it's needed for moral, emotional and financial support and they may be able to focus more on school and finishing it once they have a better idea of who they are.It also means they can take college part time while taking other classes at home or doing volunteer work or whatever may help in their own self discovery. Everyone deserves the chance to enjoy self discovery. Everyone also has their own path to get there.

This is starting to sound kind of windy. Sorry about that. This is part of what goes into my own reasons for homeschooling and it's 5 in the morning here (been up since 4). I hope some of this gives a different perspective on things. Both the good and the bad. If you want a more coherent answer to any questions I might be able to answer you can feel free to IM me.

LeBoof