My DD is gifted. She scored very high in SAT in Grade 7 without studying. She is going to Grade 8 in the Fall. To challenge her, she takes some online classes and summer camps from CTY (Intensive) and Duke TIP (center). I believe that she can pass the GED test. We are thinking of having her staying in high school till Grade 10 because we do not want her go to college due to her age. After grade 10, she can write the GED test. Can you apply to university with GED test and high SAT score? She wants to be a doctor.
You are intertwining multiple issues. Simplistically, since you are homeschooling, you determine grade level. If you want to call 7th grade 9th, if she is doing high school level work, you can. She can graduate at 15 having completed high school.
Depending on your state, she might not need to take the GED. Depending on your POV, she will have the stigma of the GED. (I personally would much rather my kids have a high school diploma than the GED.)
All that said, I have some very advanced kids and we don’t graduate them early. It doesn’t mean they spend high school completing high school level courses. They take appropriate level courses. For example, I have had a student graduate with credit for multivariable, diffEQ, linear alg 1&2, cal-based physics 1&2, modern, physical mechanics 1& 2, etc. He dual enrolled at our local universities.
What schools do you think she would apply to? Graduating early with a GED will put her at a serious disadvantage for admissions at competitive schools. There are ZERO bonus pts for graduating early. None. She will be competing against equally advanced kids who have accomplished far more academically bc they pursued 2 more yrs of coursework and have additional yrs of outside pursuits on their resumes.
My D got into a flagship state school when she was 16, graduated at 19, and now a PhD student. She didn’t take GED. I’m not sure about now, but at the time, in CA, a person has to be at least 18 yrs old to take GED.
Her stats were excellent, however: 2360 SAT (old score, 1 sitting), 4 SAT subjects (lowest score: 790), 7 AP exams (all 5). She also had 27 units of college-level classes (higher than AP, evaluated by the university she matriculated at) from the work she did at Stanford EPGY.
So yes, it is possible, even without GED.
The Hoagies Gifted website has a list of colleges with early entrance programs for young students.
I think that it is quite tough going to university early. I turned 17 the week before I went off to a very stressful (and well known) university, and I don’t think that it was actually a good idea. Anything younger than this would be worse still IMHO. For me the academics at university was NOT the issue, everything else was the issue.
Are you homeschooling now? Have you checked into how the GED is viewed by the admission committees of medical school? If your child graduates two years earlier than usual, will she still have all of the typical science and math credits:AP BC Calc, AP Physics C (both mechanics and E&M),AP Chemistry, AP Bio, etc.?
If you are homeschooling, there a many ways that you can challenge a gifted kid and have her graduate from high school at the typical age. The GED is viewed negatively by many. I would not recommend that route under your circumstances.
Check you state Ed. Dept website. Many states have a minimum age of 18-- some 19-- to take the GED.
And I agree- a high school diploma looks better to some people.
I don’t think ad coms at medical schools care about anything before college.
^ Are you sure about that? I know that medical schools ask for ACT/SAT scores and whether or not an applicant was recognized by National Merit. In light of this, I wouldn’t be surprised if they also asked where the applicant graduated from high school.
What sort of university are you thinking? Will she have the extracurriculars? And right, she could be taking college classes now, as a high schooler.
But even more, do you know what it takes, beyond a degree and some good scores, to get into different sorts of colleges, for different majors?
I am just confused as what to do with my DD. She is going to Grade 8 in the Fall. She is already in accelerated math program and will finish AP Calculus BC by Grade 10. She also does well in her English in SAT. She is not challenged in her current grade. Is there a way to skip a grade or 2 in high school. We are thinking of perhaps just write the GED and do homeschooling to get to University at an earlier age. We want DD to go to California University likes Davis or UCLA or Berkeley. I am wondering if California has the similar program as in Texas TAMS program where high school kid studies in University. TAMS is only open to Texas resident.
How do kid finish 7 AP exams and 27 units of college-level classes and 4 SAT subjects by the age of 16. If you go to public and private school, my child stuck at Grade 8 and cannot take classes beyond her grade. She is lucky that her current school allow her to take accelerated math program. How can you take high-level classes and count toward high school’s diploma. Can you dual enroll both in a local university and doing getting the high school dipolma at the same time? We are in the Bay Area.
@samiest You posted your original question on the homeschooling forum. As homeschooled students, as the parent, I decide what my kids take. If I have a young student ready for college level material, I make the decision, not school administrators. Lots of homeschooled kids start dual enrolling in college based on ability, not age. Students dual enrolling take college level classes as high school students, so they are earning college credit and their high school diploma simultaneously. How that works in individual states differs. I don’t live in CA, so I cannot speak directly toward CA law.
Have you investigated the accelerated student resources in your area? Math circles? Art of Problem Solving courses? Or AoPS forums (good place to ask questions)? Online local groups for gifted students? I know several families through online groups with extremely advanced kids who live in CA and homeschool. One has a ds who was just accepted to Berkeley as an UG at a very young age. The student had completed multiple upper level math courses before he was even a teen. Another’s ds scored a 5 on BC at age 12.
But what you are able to do within the school system, I have no idea. You need to redirect your question to a different forum if your student is in public school.
Fwiw, students can DE at Berkeley. http://extension.berkeley.edu/search/publicCourseSearchDetails.do?method=load&courseId=4606656 How that works for ps students, again, I have no idea.
I think that being very gifted, or dealing with a very gifted kid, can be very challenging. To me there are at least three aspects of this:
- appropriate academic coursework
- having a social life
- waiting until the student is sufficiently mature in non-academic ways before they go off on their own to university.
I think that it is a mistake to focus only on the first issue. The other two are important also. Unfortunately, at least through high school, being exceptionally intelligent also means being “different” from other kids.
I am quite sure that I don’t have all the answers, but suspect that the best answers will vary according to the kids individual personality and the parents resources.
How does high school home schooling apply to college and university? Home School students doesn’t get high school diploma or do they? IF they do, how? How do they get the AP classes?
Yes, they get a high school diploma. How? Issued by the parent who has complied with state educational laws. Homeschooling is legal in all 50 states as a form of k12 education.
Homeschool students apply to colleges and universities across the country. They are accepted to elite schools, earn competitive scholarships, etc. I have been homeschooling since the early 90s. I have a ds who is a chemE, a current college student who will be applying to grad school the fall for physics, a rising college freshman who was awarded a university’s competitive scholarship, etc. I have friends whose kids have graduated from their homeschool and attended Stanford, MIT, Berkeley, Princeton. I know homeschooled class of 2017 grads who were awarded Vandy’s Cornelius, W&M’s 1693, a full-ride scholarship to Duke, etc.
Students can study AP courses at home, enroll in AP courses online, enroll in local homeschool AP courses, etc. Parents can submit AP syllabi to College Board for approval and can label courses AP on transcripts.
Some examples of online courses are
http://www.aphomeschoolers.com
https://ohs.stanford.edu/
Students do not have to enroll through a designated program. They can study homemade courses. They can study via courses like MIT’s opencourseware, etc. There are as many ways to homeschool as there are homeschool families. (I can pretty much state unequivocally that my homeschool is not anything like the majority of the posters on this forum. My homeschool does not resemble a school at home environment. My kids take very untraditional type courses. It works for us.)
If you are aiming for a UC education for your child, I think your child would be at a significant disadvantage by trying to push her through a very large university system. It can be very intimidating to have 500 to 1000 students in a class at a public university.
Additionally, she needs to meet the UC requirements for home schooling:
http://admission.universityofcalifornia.edu/freshman/homeschool/index.html
If she is under 18, she will be required to always ask for your signature. Most school labs and internships require signatures as adults since insurance liability policies do not permit minors to work in certain areas of the universities.
Since you are from Texas, you are considered to be OOS and will pay full fees for her education at a UC.
Expect to pay $60K per year or ~$240k for four years. There is no financial aid for non-residents.
We live in SF Bay Area.
My D refused to go to school before finishing 3rd grade at a private school because she got bored. She was ever since home-schooled, taking online classes mainly from Stanford EPGY and John Hopkins CTY until entering UC Berkeley EECS at the age of 16. At the time she was also admitted to other universities.
She did not have a high diploma nor GED certificate. She took AP and SAT exams (not classes) at a local public high school, sometimes at The Harker School because the local school could not accommodate her.
Last summer, my D taught a CS class at UC Berkeley. The top class student was an 18 yr old girl majoring in economics who would be going to a PhD program at Columbia Univ. the following fall. She took the class “just for fun.”
@samiest We pulled our kids out of public school when we realized that they were “stuck and could not take classes beyond their grades.” My kids were in elementary school when we began homeschooling. One is now at MIT and another is at Williams. I issued their high school diplomas which are just as valid as a diploma issued by a public or private school.
My kids graduate from high school when they are the typical age of 18. There are a lot of resources, both online and in our community, that keep them engaged and challenged while in high school.
You might want to investigate the possibility of homeschooling your daughter. Good luck to you!
Is it possible for her to dual enroll in a college near you? I have a kid with a similar profile and we’ve delayed college entry for him. He isn’t clamoring to be an adult and is still working on some self motivation and executive function things. I agree with DadTwoGirls above very much. Engaging your kid at their level is the beauty of homeschooling. There are many ways to do this without sending your kids to college early. Many colleges won’t allow it based on liability alone.