So I found out that there are some BS that offer 8th grade admissions - Groton, Grier, and St. Margaret’s. It might be a good choice for my daughter, who wants to start BS at age 13 and 9 months.
Q1. Would it be possible for a student to apply for 8th grade for some schools, and 9th grade for the others in a year?
Q2. If so, would she need to take both SSAT or just upper level SSAT?
Thanks
What grade is she currently in?
@stargirl3 She is a 12 years old ungraded homeschooler learning at different level for each subject. Some subjects are in college level, some are in high school level, and some are skipped altogether.
For Studio Art and Art History, she almost finished college lower grades sculpting major requirements. For Math, she will soon finish Algebra I and move on to Geometry at home. For Science, she just finished middle school curriculum and will take community college Fundamentals of Chemistry which is one level lower than AP level General Chemistry.
The short answer is yes, kids can apply for more than one grade at different schools (for example, kids completing 9th grade in middle school may apply to some schools for 10th and others to repeat 9th). Therefore, if she’s qualified (if she’s completed the middle school curriculum, which it sounds like she has), she can apply for both 8th and 9th. BS are very good at placing kids in appropriate level classes, so it’s fine if she’s on grade for some but significantly advanced for others. The big issue though is how she’ll fit in socially: it’s often hard to be young for your grade in BS, especially when there are significant numbers of kids who repeat 9th (so are a year older) or so,entires are coming from overseas in different systems (and may even be 2 years older). It can be fine to be young, but depends on the kid.
@Daykidmom You illustrated my concern precisely. Daughter thinks she is fully ready and will leave for any school that will accept her for 2016 Fall. She thinks she probably is able to manage the age, especially at an all-girls school, because she has been with a same group of mostly 1~2 years older girls at her middle school science classes for the last 3 years. That was way better for her than her college classes with mostly 7~50 years older classmates. Still, I can’t stop thinking that same age group might be socially better during her teenage.
Well, some kids do fine-- there are often one or two kids who have skipped a grade in each class, and some who are in the normal grade for their age but have summer birthdays (my son has a late August birthday, so is on the young side, and does fine). It just depends. The fact that she is friends with kids a year or 2 older is probably a good sign. It just depends on the kid. Maybe applying for both 8th and 9th IS the way to go. Just be aware that there will be some older kids if she starts in 9th. Talk to the admissions people about it as well-- ask how younger kids do at that particular school, and what the age mix is.
@Daykidmom Thanks. Actually she once planned to apply for 2015. She took her first SSAT and used her entire Winter break to build admission portfolio working with art college applicants. But then she backed out last minute for her emotional readiness and the age difference. She also needed a year to finish remaining Ceramics courses offered by her favorite instructor and move up to competition rock climbing team which requires age 13, before leaving home.
Off topic, but I am curious as to which subjects you skipped while educating your daughter, and why?
@twinsmama Since around age 6, she has always been short on time to do more art and reading, even though she has spent every awaken minute productively. The only way to give her more art and reading time was reducing her homeschooling academics. Given 2~3 hours of daily homeschooling, I figured that it would be more efficient to focus on a few subjects instead of spreading thin.
English reading was skipped because she reads novels a lot, but I checked her reading comprehension skills once in a few months. Grammar was skipped because she naturally got it from reading, but recently I gave her a writer’s reference book to read to fill in gaps. Writing was skipped because I figured that it would be better to learn it at teen age.
History and social study were skipped because she learned them from reading novels and studying art history, but she took one semester’s U.S. History in Spring 2014.
Half of math had been replaced with deductive reasoning because I thought she would major fine art at a local college and study law. I figured that she would need LSAT Logic Games instead of Calculus.
She had only little bit of music lessons in piano and guitar. She didn’t want music and didn’t have time for it. Sacrificing it was just necessary.
All the recouped time was focused on Science, Math (including Deductive Reasoning), and foreign languages.
@jwalche Interesting; thank you for explaining.
In addition to reading, she has listened to audiobooks while doing arts at home until recently. It adds up to 10k+ hours and by itself was a good classical education that covers literature, reading, grammar, history, ethics, and so forth. She stopped doing it a while ago though. Her arts started to demand undivided attention, and audiobook became too slow compare to her reading speed.
Does the state in which you reside require you to submit your home school program before the school year in addition to a written evaluation by an approved representative of the state at the end of the year?
In California, we have two major options. The first one is going under umbrella of a charter school that we did for 4~5 years. I had to meet Educational Specialist every month for such evaluations. During that time my rather radical approach hadn’t caused any problem, perhaps because it was more flexible during Elementary years and we didn’t have the Common Core.
Few years ago, I went independent by filing Private School Affidavit. Since then keeping attendance record has been the only requirement.
" She took her first SSAT and used her entire Winter break to build admission portfolio working with art college applicants."
How did she score on the SSAT, if you don’t mind our asking.
@granny2, She took upper level test (registered as grade 8). Score was Verbal ~780, Quantitative ~700, Reading ~710, Total 2190 / 90 Percentile, rounded to 10s for privacy.
I will pm you her newly created portfolio link since you seem to be interested in her education 