<p>I think that by going to college at this age, you will be significantly limiting your opportunities, both in college and in careers. However, you sound well put together, despite the negativity from other posters. As others suggested, I’d take the most intense courseload possible in your sophomore year and then apply. My real recommendation would be to take all 4 years and go to JHU or some other prestigious med school, but I’m not here to change your mind about that I suppose.</p>
<p>Though, you really will need to get out of the introversion for the future. I mean, you should have greater goals than being a surgeon- ex. enjoying your life. Besides, being a surgeon (or whatever it is you want to get out of Med School) heavily relies on personal skills. Think about it, people’s lives will end in your hands, and you will have to tell their families. Plus, people tend to be extremely uncomfortable and stubborn when it comes to surgery and such, and you will have to be able to talk them through it. Just sayin.</p>
<p>If you believe you’re up for it, power to ya, but just things to think about. I bet you can do it, you just need a liiitle better attitude for this all to work out. For information on the actual process, you will need to seek out better information; your counselor will be a good start, but it would be better to talk to specific schools you’re looking at.</p>
<p>OP has reinforced the arguments put forth against the decision to skip by posting more. Can you not see that by saying you’re more mature than everyone else, you are showing yourself to be less mature? Also, while academic success and personal maturity are not necessarily linked, you will need both as a doctor. As of right now, you seem to have the beginnings of one of those things. And cornel: lmao upvote to you sir</p>
<p>I know a person who ran through all of the math courses and physics at their local community college by the end of 9th grade, and who started college instead of 10th grade. That person is now in grad school at one of the very top programs in the country. And this is one of the nicest, most well adjusted, young people I have ever met. Not everyone who starts college early is a freak.</p>
<p>I also know another person who began to work as a professional chef as soon as they were able to get a working permit. This person is still in high school while working several evenings each week, and will graduate on the original schedule. </p>
<p>Some people just are ready to get on with their professional lives a lot sooner than others. You need to be talking with your parents about this one. They need to be finding out about their options as well. One parent here whose child did start college early is owlice. I believe her son is/was at Simon’s Rock. You could send her a PM or have your parents send her one. I am sure that she will be happy to talk about her family’s experience.</p>
<p>I have two sons who tested as exceptionally gifted (150+ IQs). The older one is an extrovert – he started high school at the age of 9 and graduated at age 14, with a year off during which we traveled for 3 months. The younger one is as smart or smarter, but has always been an introvert – social aspects held back his rapid acceleration until high school; he needed time to build self-confidence, which is a necessary component in CONVINCING OTHERS to let you handle accelerated work outside the mainstream. </p>
<p>Getting official acceleration approval upfront is extremely difficult and time-consuming; I spent many months getting things in place for my 9-year-old who had been largely homeschooled thus far. It’s much easier to get back-door approval, prove yourself there and use that success to argue your case for more acceleration. My older son started his first college chemistry class (dual enrollment) as a junior just before he turned 13; my second unaccelerated son, as a mid-year high school freshman, took his first college class at age 14. In both cases, neither class was officially sanctioned when they began – both were trial tests. When each showed themselves capable of doing high-A-quality work, they were allowed to stay and the professors agreed to “bank” the grade for official enrollment in the following term. With the results in hand, we then approached the high school to seek official approval – it’s a little hard to argue against already-proven success.</p>
<p>A friend of my younger son’s started taking classes at a community college with great success at maybe age 13, then his mom convinced a Northwestern University professor to give him a chance, unofficially. After the fact, he also got approval to continue at Northwestern although there were a lot of protests from some bureaucrats about how “we can’t do that.” </p>
<p>So, yes it is possible, but you have to deal with the chicken-and-the-egg problem: no one will give you a chance until you can document your success, and you can’t document your success until someone gives you approval. In your case, I would stay in high school officially and talk to some college professors about giving you a trial run, then using any success to gain dual high school/college credits for at least a year. You may be able to “jump ship” to college full-time in a year if you get the right letters of recommendation, make the right contacts and make the right impressions with those that support you. Remember that no school or university is a monolith and you may have to work with several people to find that mentor who will help you waive the usual rules.</p>
<p>My younger son decided to simply graduate high school in 3 years, while doing mostly college-level work, beginning his second year: college classes, official school AP classes and self-taught AP classes where his school just ordered the extra tests for him. He took 8 APs his sophomore year and earned enough credits to skip a year of college.</p>
<p>I’m wondering if you - and your parents - might contact someone at the following places to make an appointment - even if it’s for a long telephone call - to ask their thoughts and advice about your questions. It’s clear that you’ve already given this some thought and it’s fair to seek advice from those sources whom can offer informed assistance:</p>
<p>The Davidson Institute for Talent Development, Reno, Nevada;
The Belin Center for Gifted Education at the University of Iowa;
The Center for Talent Development at Northwestern University;
The Center for Talented Youth at the Johns Hopkins University;
Stanford University’s Education Program for Gifted Youth.</p>
<p>The Davidson Institute’s homepage, by the way, includes a link to various gifted resources on a state-by-state basis.</p>
<p>Many universities are prepared to consider various forms of early enrollment. And an earlier poster has mentioned Simon’s Rock, which might be an option for you to consider. First, though, it seems to me that it would be most useful to you to liaise with professionals who regularly deal with the questions you’re posing and who can offer a more comprehensive view of the spectrum of opportunities available than many of us on CC, me included!</p>
<p>Best of luck to you and your family in your information-gathering and decision-making.</p>
<p>The biggest problem with these special colleges that allow students to enroll early without an official high school diploma is that they almost always require leaving home and going off to live with strangers, not the best choice for an introverted 15-year-old.</p>
<p>The biggest problem with the nearby state college within commuting distance is that most require a high school diploma or GED (which you can’t take until you’re 18). The college-entry system has actually gotten more rigid over the last decade – perhaps too many of the better students are now trying to opt out of finishing high school?</p>
<p>With dual-credit and AP classes, it is possible for a determined student to finish high school in 3 years and also earn close to 2 years of college credit before officially becoming a full-time college student. This 5-year combined total is the time-equivalent of jumping from being a high school freshman to being a college freshman, without the associated bureaucratic nightmare. The downside is that a lot more hours are required to sit in high school classes full-time PLUS take college classes evenings and weekends.</p>
<p>A possible upside, however, is that college students can be much more tolerant of having young dual-credit high school students in their midsts than they might be of very young college students – they’re not REAL competitors (call it the smart younger brother syndrome). My 14-year-old had a married 25-year-old chem lab partner, who regularly called him about the lab write-ups; I don’t see, however, that they would have “hung out” together, attending campus social events.</p>
<p>Try taking some community college classes, or a program that will academically challenge you outside of school. Clearly you are intelligent-- however, socially, you may be at a disadvantage if you are 3 years younger than your clasmates. You gain a lot of perspective through experience between the ages of 14-18. If theres any way you can hold off for a year, explore alternative programs, I think it may benefit you in the long run. (And just from my perspective… I think a 23 year old doctor may throw some people off.)</p>
<p>Just the fact you’re to an online forum to practically brag about yourself while not exploring actual, real world, practical solutions, shows you are most likely not socially, mentally, and probably not physically prepared for college or the world. High School is learning about who you are so when you get to college you can buckle down and study. Come back in three years and ask us again.</p>
<p>Harsh agreed, but a slap in the face helps naivety. We can all use it once in a while. Life does not equal academics. Far from it.</p>
<p>Your political and religious beliefs have nothing to do with your maturity, and your insinuating that you are more mature than “most people my age” just because of your beliefs strikes me as exceedingly immature.</p>
<p>
EXACTLY why you should stick it out in high school. Social skills are important. Really important. If you can’t relate to people your own age, what makes you think 18 year olds will want to hang out with you? And life’s no fun without friends.</p>
<p>Shrinkwrap has a point; it’s the students who are saying not to do it. I think that’s because most posters are seniors, and as such we are at a stage where we reflect on high school, because it’s ending soon. That reflection, in my case, has made me realize just how much I have gotten from high school. It seems a waste for someone else to skip it entirely. A parent, on the other hand, might have more experience dealing with accelerated students, and would b more open to discussing the possibility of an accelerated program. Rightly so. It’s all a matter of perspective.</p>
<p>There are a variety of programs out there. The best I’ve heard of is affiliated with the University of Washington in Seattle. Kids in the program live at home the first year, when they are 13-14 or so, doing a special combined high-school/college program, then moved into the regular university setting. One of my friends, with an extremely precocious son, moved there to take advantage of this program. At 12, he was already enrolled in a slew of AP classes and had exhausted even what our high-powered suburban school system could offer him. I know a lot of faculty children who are excellent students, but this kid is unusual.</p>
<p>I’ve read about or heard about other programs, too, but many of them are at very small or rather unselective LACs, and I wonder whether high-powered students are going to find what they are looking for there.</p>
<p>The problem with doing college so young is that you don’t really know what you want to be doing with your life yet (even if you think you do, you really don’t.) This means that it is easy to waste a lot of time, very expensively. I know a kid who did a BA in a special program at Mary Baldwin College in her early teens, and then discovered that her actual interests were entirely different, but that she had prepared for the wrong career and spent all her college money. I myself went to college at 16 and did most of a hard science major before realizing that my real interests were in the humanities; I had to scramble to change course.</p>
<p>I have encouraged my own kids, who are fine students but not, in the great scheme of things, all that remarkable intellectually, to take a challenging high school program and to explore their special interests in extracurricular and summer activities. My son really benefitted from the Center for Talented Youth summer programs, did a ton of AP, and got a job related to his career interests during his final years of high school. He is now in college and can graduate in two years, if he wishes.</p>
<p>I don’t want to preach to you because that’s obviously not what you want.
I’m utterly bored in high school as well. if I could have skipped junior year and senior year I would have as a freshman. but when I thnk about what I was like as a freshman and who I am today as a junior, I see a complete difference.
yes, as a freshman I was unable to care about the trivialities of my peers, and it still is the same today, maybe to a higher extent.
I wanted to work in the CDC as an infectious disease researcher. right now I realize that that is so far from what I would care about doing. the classes I’ve taken have exposed me to things nobody would have bothered to show a a class full of immature freshman.
like you, I’m an introvert, and this would have been increased to such an unhealthy degree if I was placed for four years with adults much older than me and very unwilling to fraternize with me.</p>
<p>long story short, I think you should make every effort to stay with people of your age. you’re not the only smart , mature kid of your age. it’s up to you to find a boarding school or early college that lets you develop relationships with the kind of peers that share your passion.</p>
<p>OP, look up “early entrance to college programs” or “residential dual enrollment programs.” I know people who skipped their last three years of high school to attend one of these programs, and they are still well-adjusted, especially since these programs are composed of students of high school age. You’d be taking college classes with regular college students though. Many of these programs are meant for high school juniors and seniors, but your SAT scores are high enough for them to make an exception. I know of two in Georgia, and there are some others scattered around the country. Because it’s dual-enrollment, you’ll still be considered a high school student when you’re applying to universities during what would be your senior year of high school.</p>
<p>re: the commentary from fellow students, I just have to say a few things:</p>
<p>1.) My mother only skipped one grade, but she (constantly) felt like it was a mistake to have done so, as she was both introverted, and couldn’t relate to her peers (either by age or grade) she had a much harder time of things. It would not have been a problem had she been more social, but she’s not. In the long run, that hurt.</p>
<p>2.) Being only a college freshman myself, I had considered doing what you did several times over throughout high school. I was ultimately glad I stuck it out, and honestly, I think it would have been very bad for me if I hadn’t. (Even if I do consider myself a mature and independent person, I still had the ability to see room for improvement before I got to college.)</p>
<p>3.) Upon arriving here, I made friends with a girl who was both heavily introverted and had “unschooled” for High School. Basically, she did six months of “Deschooling” (no classwork, assignments, formal learning whatsoever. A long summer vacation, basically) and then crammed four years of High School into two years, though unschooling (no grades, no tests, no set curricula, etc). She arrived just after she turned 17, and out of all the kids who were homeschooled at my College, she was both the youngest, and had the hardest time. She had originally wanted to be a doctor, but unlike kids who had taken HS anatomy, she’d never seen a cadaver, dissected anything, turned on a bunsen burner, taken chemistry, etc. She started by diving straight into Chem (instead of the foundational Biology), and ended up loathing it. She had no experience volunteering in hospitals or Elder Care centers, and unlike my HS friends interested in medicine, had no formal idea of what that actually meant. (My best friend was a Certified Nursing Assistant by age 17, and had done clinicals for a semester, another friend volunteered at the local hospital, and still another had an internship with the local Mayo Clinic; all valuable HS experiences that can tell you whether or not you want to spend your life doing those things.) </p>
<p>Said friend did not return for her second term of college.</p>
<p>The social nuances are also extremely valuable - No one is saying you have to go to prom (I didn’t), but as my parents and I agreed: There is a whole lot of bs and idiocy in the real world. You have to learn how to deal with that, and find the genuine people as well.</p>
<p>If you really want to do this, I suggest a dual enrollment program, or homeschooling supplemented with community college classes so that you still have “high school” done, but have the chances to explore the actual work of the job you’re considering. Then do a University for your BA. You’ll lose nothing if you do it right, but if you skip out without considering all the angles, you’ll miss out on a lot.</p>
<p>I was really young in college and medical school. Looking back, being naive in college, was a bigger problem than patients who mocked my “baby face” in medical school.</p>
<p>Alright, Dr. House… I don’t get why you’re coming on here if you’re set on heading out from high school anyways. If you really want to do it, then by all means, go ahead (you definitely look qualified) , but I’m really worried about your attitude towards all the kids that go to your school. Calling them close-minded and using religious as a negative description (besides being a paradox) tells me that, without spending any time in high school, you will be
A) Completely socially underdeveloped
B) Terrible at communicating, which is a key part of being a doctor
also, being an Atheist doesn’t make you “mature”; if it did, all of the world’s Christians would be children. plenty of people were atheists in their early youth then converted to Christianity, and honestly, if you look down on people for being religious, you definitely need to spend some time around… well, people. </p>
<p>You won’t make friends in High School if you skip it. You won’t make friends in College if you’re this young. You won’t make friends in life if you’ve never had friends and if you refuse to accept your peers, and really, looking back, you would see how much you’ve missed.</p>
<p>I know a bunch of freshman who are, by all means, brilliant, but have no business being anywhere near another human being… you DO NOT want to be that guy.</p>
<p>Oh, and you need four English Credits. so, there’s that.</p>
<p>On the bright side, though, you have all the makings of an absolute genius. Just take the time to learn to mingle. Success isn’t all smarts.</p>
<p>Why are people talking about parties as if they’re some sort of prerequisite for college or life success? Seriously, if you want to skip all that, more power to you.</p>