First post here, I hope this forum is okay for this scenario. We live in Wisconsin, so in-state tuition applies.
My daughter is in 8th grade. She took the SAT cold (zero prep) in December, scored 650 in English, 520 in Math, so 1170 total. She said English was easy but had not learned much of the Geometry yet. She has been messing around with ACT Up app and scoring in the 29-30 range now. 3.92 GPA, not perfect or anything.
She is taking geometry and Spanish 3 now (they start Spanish in Kindergarten at her school). She loves to read.
She is fine with high school if needed, but also would be willing to go straight to college now and is very interested in this possible plan:
Go to local private high school for the 9th and 10th grade. Take Spanish 4 and 5 (CAPP course at UW-Oshkosh). Take Algebra 2, Trig and Pre-Calc. Other rigorous courses and maybe 2-3 AP classes plus the tests in 10th grade. This school is on a block schedule and does 4 classes per quarter. Also, enroll at UW-Fox Valley (2-year University of Wisconsin campus near us). Take 3-6 credits in Summer, Spring, and Fall both years, about 24-30 credits combined.
Drop out of high school and enroll full-time at UW-Fox Valley in what would be her 11th-grade year and take about 30 credits. All credits she takes will transfer. UW-Fox Valley has a guaranteed transfer program to UW-Madison if you have a 3.2 GPA or higher.
Transfer to UW-Madison and enroll as a college Junior at age 17. She would pick up 16 Spanish retro credits and 54-60 UW-Fox Valley Credits.
Go to UW-Madison for her major (Computer Science projected, but whatever she wants is fine) for two years. Start with 70-76 credits.
Graduate at age 18 (will be turning 19 in May) from UW-Madison. Consider work or possibly grad school depending on her goals at that time.
The total cost for her bachelor’s degree will total about $60,000-$70,000 between UW-Madison and UW-Fox Valley. The basic classes like Intro to Psych are the same between both schools. She will have 3 additional years in the workplace or to start grad school very young. She still gets two years of high school for that “high school experience” and would have the option to continue in high school if she chooses. I guess she could try to apply to other schools other than Madison, but the positive here is guaranteed admission with what is likely to be a pretty easy GPA for her to attain.
After this novel of a post, my question is: What are the downsides here that I am not considering? Or does this seem like a decent plan?
I think it is a huge downside to go to college at 17,and I say that as one who did it and as a mother who sent a 17 year old to college a few years ago. It’s just hard to be younger than everyone else. She’d be living in a dorm with kids just a year or two older, but u likely to have classes with any of them as she’d be a junior.
Is there a reason for this? Do high schools in your area not offer classes like calc or AP sciences?
The reasons are: she is advanced, has little-to-no interest in high school, would graduate 3 years ahead of her age cohort, and enter grad school/workforce at a younger age. There are 30,000 undergrads at UW-Madison; I doubt she would share many classes with dormmates and that makes no difference to her.
Let me ask you, so you did it and then also sent your kid to do it, yet recommend against it. So why did you send your kid to college as a 17-year-old if you had such a poor experience? Other than the social aspects (my daughter is very atypical in this way), why else was it worse for you?
We have advanced kids, and we have made the decision to not do it. Why? We don’t see any reason to race toward adulthood when they will live there the rest of their lives. Since you posted this in the homeschooling forum, we also homeschool precisely bc we want to educate our kids according to our standards, not replicate what schools do.
Our kids explore subjects outside of the traditional high school sequence (philosophy, multiple foreign languages, history and literature courses outside of the traditional high school realm, multiple track sciences each yr, etc). We plan high school courses that explore their interests. They graduate from high school competitive applicants after having had 4 yrs of high school with high levels of achievements.
I also don’t understand what the student is racing toward, but I’d like to point out that spending two years at a 2 year UW campus might not be that intellectually rewarding. But sure, if the student is miserable at high school due to a terrible social situation, then considering ways to shorten high school might be fruitful.
Fwiw, these are the downsides I see from the post. Little to no downtime to pursue interests or even to figure out individual interests and who they are. (Why DE during the summer?)
DE schedules can be hard to coordinate with high school schedules. Time conflicts, travel time, etc are not necessarily easy fixes.
Dual enrollment grades follow students forever. Some schools even factor the grades into their GPAs. A bad grade at 14 isn’t left behind.
It is extremely unlikely that 70-76 credits would transfer in as credits toward graduation. A lot of those credits would probably be junk credits with no gain. Systematic, purposeful class by class selection would probably net better targeted gains.
Geometry in 8th is advanced, but in the world of advanced kids, it really isn’t that advanced. As a CS major, her math needs to be rock solid. Have you looked into AoPS? They have great courses for advanced kids who want to be challenged. Their classes are online and most students are ps students seeking additional challenge. They have discussion forums for kids who want to geek out over academic topics. Instead of racing forward, she could delve deeper and master subjects with greater complexity.
Fwiw, advanced kids often qualify for competitive scholarships. Academic costs can be far less than $60-70,000 if they win large scholarships.
Downside or not depends on the kid. I don’t think younger than other students is a downside. But the (lack of) maturity, particularly in time management and crisis handling, can be great downsides.
I agree with these:
About my D:
At 12: ACT (31), SAT2 Physics (800), 1 AP exam (5)
At 13: SAT (old score 800 R, 790 M, 610W), SAT2 Math2 (790), Latin (780), USHist (800), 3 more AP exams (all 5)
At 15: 3 more AP exams (all 5)
Academically, she could have entered college at the age of 13. At the time, we felt that she was not mature for college, mainly in time management and taking care of herself. Instead of going to college, she took college-level (beyond AP) classes at Stanford EPGY (linear algebra, real analysis, complex analysis, differential equations, quantum physics. computer science, …).
When she was near 16, there were no more classes of interest at EPGY and local community colleges for her, she applied to college, got excepted to several schools, and decided to matriculate at UC Berkeley (EECS),
The Math and the Physics Departments at UC Berkeley evaluated her classwork at EPGY to a total of 27 units (in addition to AP credits), but the College of Engineering didn’t count those units as part of the degree, only allowed them to fulfill prerequisites for more advanced classes.
She graduated with honors from UC Berkeley at 19, and is currently in a PhD program there. She has always been the youngest in her group, and has no problem with that. In fact, no one seems to care.
Again, I don’t think the age difference is a problem. The question is whether the kid has the intellectual ability and the maturity for college life.