Graduating high school early?

[SarahB]

My oldest is 16 and about to start her junior year, a decent, though not outstanding student (solid B average in college prep and honors level classes), has friends and a social life, but also is very responsible and frankly fairly mature for her age. She's working 40 hrs/week this Summer, expanding her world, and she's frankly a bit sick of the high school "drama BS crap" (her closest friends are all going into their senior year). She looks like she's going to have a chance to graduate a year early because she's taken and is taking a pretty big course load so far.

We have a great community college in our town and chances are she wasn't off to Harvard anyway (probably UConn eventually). What's the long term implications if she does this? If she graduates a year early and does a year or two at a community college, is this a good thing? My inner gut doesn't have a problem with it, but I needed some opinions from DU's academia. She's interested in medicine, ultimately a physical therapist (MS/MA program) or possibly PA or MD specializing in orthopedics or sports medicine. Her junior year course load includes honors Chem and history, college prep Pre-calc and English, Spanish 4 (started in middle school) along with electives, gym, etc.

[kat_kringle]

1. i think it could go both ways

but ultimately i personally think that graduating early would be excellent. i felt like i wasted a lot of time in HS with the same kind of drama that you mentioned, as i wasn't necessarily that challenged in my course work, even with AP classes. looking back, i wish i would have left early, gone into college and things would have been better. plus, with your daughter being mature, she probably wont have a problem with fitting in with older students.

anyways, if she goes to community college, would it be for generals and then a transfer? or would she get her AA or AS and transfer?

[SarahB]

2. Not sure yet.

Personally, I think from a financial standpoint, getting her AA/AS first and then transferring would be better and if she goes this route, I'd encourage it from that prospective.

[kat_kringle]

3. i agree

also, then the college she transfers to can look at her AA/AS degree as a whole, instead of a group of credits to transfer. (ok, that was supposed to make sense, but i'm having issues with wording since it's almost 130. ack! i hope you know what imean!! )

:hi:

i'm new btw (obviously), nice to meet you!

[SarahB]

4. Not losing the credits is always good too...

sometimes without that package of the degree, it happens.

I'm old (not really, still 30-something, but old here). Nice to meet you too! :hi:

[The empressof all]

5. My daughter completed her last two years of HS at the community college

It's a program called Running Start. Her college tuition was paid by the school district. She graduated last month at 17 with both her high school diploma and her AA. She's starting University in September as a Junior.

It was a mixed blessing I think. Obviously we saved two years of college tuition. Not chump change because we're not eligible for financial aid. She did qualify for merit and music scholarships.

She was involved in a few programs at the high school which she continued with while taking her classes at the college. She kept her core group of friends and enjoyed her extra curricular activities. She has mentioned that she did feel that "no one" outside of her group really knew her when she visited the high school for lunches. and activities. Over all though I think she feels positive about her experience. She is regretting not being able to take some of the classes at the University since she has all her core requirements done now.

Since she was completing both high school and college credit in one some colleges and universities would not accept her AA as transfer. It did limit her choices somewhat but frankly, I wouldn't have wanted her to go to those schools anyway. Most schools were very happy to accept most if not all the credits.

I think for my kid anyway it was a great opportunity and certainly was a great benefit to her academically and financially.

[SarahB]

9. They have a program like that here.

It's actually affiliated with the same CC and the high school. It's starts in 10th grade though and will most likely do that with her brother who's now going into 7th grade (and academically a total whiz).

[moriah]

6. I graduated early.

It was kind of odd being 16 and in college. I did go to school away from home, and there were a few concerns because I was a minor -- Mom had to sign a parental consent form basically acknowledging the school's right of "in loco parentis" (in other words, if I broke an arm or fell off a building they had the right to make a medical decision for me if they couldn't contact my parents, etc).

I generally got along with everyone and most people forgot I was underage.

I think it was the right thing for me to do, because I had a very whacked-out family life and pursued early graduation on the advice of my therapist (my mother got back together with my father and he was a drunk and a drug addict, going to college early was the fastest way out of the house, which my therapist said would be the best cure for my "adjustment disorder" -- aka, I couldn't adjust to having a dad shooting up in my house.)

As you can imagine, I was more mature than most people my age, so that probably had a lot to do with the other people not really noticing my age after awhile.

I'm focusing on social adjustment because academically it was the best thing I'd ever done, and I think it'll be the same for your daughter. But most people worry about the social implications -- if your child wasn't ready academically you wouldn't be considering it at all.

[SarahB]

10. She'll be commuting

I have no worries about the social aspects. She works with people in the late teens and early 20's and has no problem. She's tall and looks older anyway, so will blend in fine. Academically she'll be fine too.

I'm glad you had that option when you were younger. Sounds like the best thing. :hug:

[bicentennial_baby]

7. I don't know what the CT system is like, but

Here, if you get your AA/AS at a Community College, you can transfer automatically into any state University as a Junior, which is what I did. We also have a deal that if you graduate CC with a certain GPA (3.5 or above), and maintain it at the University, you get 1/3rd off of tuition, which I also get.

If you think she's ready for it, and she wants to, I'd say go for it, personally.

:hi:

[SarahB]

8. That's how it is here now too.

I like the GPA thing, but I don't think that's a factor in CT though. Yeah, if she does well this semester, it may be a go. Holy crap. I can't believe I may be having a kid in college next year. It's kind of surreal.

[Chan790]

11. CT is similar...

you can transfer to any state college (credits transfer automatically as well.)...except UConn, automatically. (Semi-automatically...there's a GPA minimum.)

UConn, as the flagship school of the system, gets to be choosy. With those grades though, she'd have no problem transferring to UConn after two years if she keeps her grades up. UConn's satellite campuses might still be a better choice. There are 5 or 6 of those and they do automatically get transferred to UConn after 2 years.

I have no idea about tuition discounts for academic achievement; all my CC-college-educated friends are the morons who couldn't get into a 4-year school because they f'ed off in HS and/or college and ended up at CC where they scraped by. My brother transferred from the local CC to CCSU...from a Fin. Aid standpoint, it's a nightmare...he doesn't get any. (That might have as much to do with the fact that he dropped-out twice before finally getting his associate's degree though.)

Which CC? Between myself, friends and family I have experience with many of them. The ones in the cities (Gateway in New Haven, Capital in Hartford, for example) tend to be much better schools with much better offerings, better facilities and student bodies who are more academically-serious (Most are adults seeking higher education or kids who were smart enough for college but couldn't afford to go/working full-time their way through college).

[SarahB]

12. MCC

(Manchester, not Middlesex)
Large campus with a lot of offerings, even cultural. Although I'd be open to CCC for her as well. Her dad and I both started on the CC route ourselves. I was fine academically, but I was basically on my own from the age of 18 (same with her dad/ my ex) and had to work. I knew of people at MCC who transferred to Yale even.

[Chan790]

14. I've heard that MCC is a really good school. n/m

[hobbit709]

13. I spent my senior year bored stiff

I had the credits but the school system where I was didn't have any provisions for that. So my senior year, I had to take a couple of idiot courses just for the sake being in school to get my diploma. when I graduated I had 21 ½ credits and the graduation minimum was 17. Two years later the system changed their policy.