<p>My son has a classmate who was home schooled through 11th grade and then joined my son’s class last year for a second year of 11th grade. This is a private high school with a rigorous college prep curriculum. It is not an IB program. I’m not sure if the young man has chosen his college yet, but I haven’t heard of any negative issues. I think you just explain your circumstances on your applications and let the schools know why you made the choices you did. This young man is one of the older kids in the class, but there are plenty others with him. Like saintfan said, lots of summer birthday kids wait a year to start school. I don’t think being a year older is a big deal as a high school senior or as a college freshman.</p>
<p>IB is not something that you can drop into for 1 year. HL classes are a 2 year sequence and papers are carried over from one year to the next in several subjects. Papers written an submitted Junior year will be turned back, researched more, reworked, improved and sent away to IB folks for grading during senior year. TOK spans 2 years as well. Senior year is oral exams - D has orals today, in fact. As someone said on a previous post, the year is broken up to a degree by orals, extended essay reworking etc. I will say, having taken a few classes at our local CC over the years, IB is way more rigorous than many dual enrollment CC experiences.</p>
<p>Honestly, if you want the High School experience then do the full two years. Starting Senior year will be late to get the full experience. I would think admissions counselors will completely understand your reasoning, you want to participate in the IB program, and you want to experience High School. </p>
<p>The way IB works at my kids school is the higher level classes are two year classes, so you can’t just opt to take the IB classes you want. You are either in the two year IB program or you are not. </p>
<p>I don’t think you will be ahead/behind age wise. My D is a full year younger than her classmates, and her best friend is a full year older. </p>
<p>I love the IB approach to education. I am not sure how we would know if the student would be ahead or behind the other students. It probably would depend on the subjects. IB has so much variety that the student may be able to pick up classes where he would not be far ahead of other students. </p>
<p>If you want to experience HS, then I would vote that you should experience HS. Take 2 years, get to really know the students and have a ball.</p>
<p>My D attends Armand Hammer United World College, a two year international IB diploma boarding school in New Mexico. Most of the Americans who attend this school entered after 11th grade so are repeating 11th grade in order to do the IB diploma at this school. I don’t think colleges care how many years you spend in high school if you demonstrate that you are taking advantage of what is available to you. Including a foreign exchange year, my D will have spent 6 years in high school and be turning 20 her first year of college but she has only benefited from her varied experiences. I expect that you will benefit as well. There’s no rush. If you feel like the school would offer you new challenges and experiences, go for it!</p>
<p>How are they going to know that you’re repeating 11th grade? I ask because we homeschooled our son and as a sophomore decided that he wasn’t really where he needed to be and just made him a freshman again. Is there any reason why you can just count your last four years as high school? The transcript we submitted showed only his last four years along with high school level classes done in 8th grade, Algebra and Biology. DS had a July birthday so he started college as a 19 year old but it hasn’t been an issue for him.</p>
<p>Why don’t you enroll in the high school now? Finish out your junior year and complete your senior year. So what if you don’t get both years of an IB class done. It still will meet requirements for graduation. There are kids that don’t take a full IB load and do just fine.</p>
<p>I can’t jump in right now because I’m enrolled in college courses.</p>
<p>My age concerns are silly, I know. I probably won’t even notice the difference. It’s still a weird mental adjustment to think that I would be graduating college, in all likelihood, at 22 instead of 21, high school at 18 instead of 17, and so on. It’s especially strange to me because I’ve always been ready to go to school away from home. It’s been a source of excitement and eagerness, and now I’m considering staying home an extra year and spending 8 hours a day in school? Crazy.</p>
<p>But I am really liking the idea of the IB program and having the chance to experience traditional high school, develop my extracurriculars, and really come into my own. 
Lots to think about here. Thank you all for your input.</p>
<p>“Hold on to 16 as long as you can . . .”</p>
<p>It sounds like you know your feelings and your plan is sound and not uncommon. The full IB diploma is an experience as a whole. If you value that experience and value the chance to be a kid and do kid things, joining clubs and sports, music, plays, etc. why not? Again D has really come into her own these past 2 years, like you say. I see very little, if any, down side.</p>
<p>While I think getting a taste of HS life is a fabulous idea, frankly, I’m concerned that two years will be too much for you, i.e., that you will be past ready to go to college after one year. But…why don’t you approach the IB program director, state you are interested in applying and ask permission to come and shadow a current IB junior all day to learn more. I would imagine the application deadline for next year is looming, so your request should be well-received. This will get you on campus for a full day and will also allow you to get a peek into the IB program. Might also be good to mix it up with putting one AP class on the visitation itinerary. </p>
<p>Good luck!</p>
<p>I agree with saintfan. Why rush? </p>
<p>While I know IB is not for everyone, for some students it can be everything. For my D, it is everything we could hope for. (I suspect for my S, we may feel differently). She shares her classroom discussions with the family during dinner and I am often impressed with the level of discourse. </p>
<p>I do think it would be a good idea to shadow a student to make sure it is a fit. It will also help you to address your age concerns.</p>
<p>seachange, before you and your parents jump into this IB situation, you may need to have a talk with the school guidance counselors and administrators about how they accommodate former homeschoolers who transfer into their school system.</p>
<p>My main concern here is that there may be courses required for graduation beyond those required by the IB program, and that the school system may not be able to accept your homeschooling experience as equivalent to some of those courses. If you have to take some required courses that are outside the IB program, it may not be possible for you to complete the IB diploma. There is very little room in the schedules of IB 11th and 12 graders for courses other than IB courses. So if you have to take other courses, you might have to settle for earning IB certificates in selected subjects, rather than the full diploma. And this might affect your decision about whether to pursue IB at all.</p>
<p>I am not sure whether this will be a problem, but you need to have the conversation with school officials – and it may take more than one conversation because the people who know how to deal with former homeschoolers may not be the same people who understand the complexities of IB.</p>
<p>^^ true, good point. In our district it might just be PE, health and some kind of “tech ed”. It’s likely that you would have satisfied those types of requirements or could get waivers for outside activities, but it would be prudent to know for sure. You would likely have only 2 semester elective slots with full IB opposite TOK in your schedule.</p>
<p>My guess is that as a home-schooled kid taking college courses, who has many college-aged friends, and is clearly looking at education in a mature, thoughtful, and intellectually curious manner, you may find yourself a little frustrated in high school, even if you do an IB program, and especially if you join a class that is a bit younger than you are. </p>
<p>There may be a trade-off here. One year of being stuck in school all day in classes that might not be the most stimulating (non IB), but with the chance to experience the fun high school stuff. Or two years of being stuck in school all day in somewhat more stimulating classes (IB),but a bit disappointed as you realize that not all kids take this program for purely intellectual reasons (some are doing if just for college admissions purposes and cut corners, etc). You may get really restless and eager to be out by senior year. Either way, I would suggest that you throw yourself into every extra curricular activity that appeals to you. </p>
<p>I wouldn’t worry at all about what the colleges will think. The schools you name will respect either course if thoughtfully examined. But a crucial factor might be the timing of other college admissions tasks. Have you taken SAT or ACT, subject tests? You may need a junior year in school to get that done. Fall of senior year is largely consumed with writing college applications. Are you ready to leap into that?</p>
<p>Your age won’t matter at all once you’re in college. </p>
<p>Good luck!</p>
<p>Thank you all so much for the thoughtful responses.</p>
<p>Several valid points have been raised. Marian, my state has a strict standard course of study. I’ve followed it except for two EOCs I’ll have to take this year, both in subjects I excel at and won’t have a problem passing. I don’t anticipate any issues because everything in my state is so standardized, but I’m going to email an authority at the school to make sure all my ducks are in a row, anyway.</p>
<p>TXArtemis, you’re totally right to mention being extremely worn out with schooling by the time I hit senior year. That’s another issue. I do know that this high school has an established study abroad program partnered with other IB schools, so that may be a possibility to help break up the monotony.</p>
<p>Testobsessed, that’s another thing I’m worried about. It’s a risk. I’m pretty disconnected from typical high school/teenage life right now - I attend college, all of my friends are 18-23 years old, I work with people in their early 20s, my extracurriculars are college-centric - and I’m frankly expecting some culture shock if I decide to spend the next two years in a traditional school. Re: testing, I’m set to take several APs, a few subject tests, and the SAT in May/June. I’m consistently scoring around 2250 on CollegeBoard’s SAT practice tests, though, and I’m not worried at all about my other testing.</p>
<p>I can’t really say anything constructive about the motivations/intellectual curiosity of the other kids. I’ll be extremely disappointed if it’s a culture of must-get-into-Harvard and grade-grubbing. I’m trying to keep in mind that their priorities are none of my business, and my attitude ultimately determines how positive my experience is. Still, this is something I’m very, very nervous about. I’m trying to simply count it as an unknown and move on to hard facts.</p>
<p>A big thing is that I’m interested in all the ECs the school has going on. I’m into journalism and documentaries, and they apparently have a small but really awesome newspaper and a film club that is just getting on its feet. I’ve also heard it’s a really inclusive EC scene for newcomers, ie they’re willing to let me have as much part in it as I’m willing to give rather than delegating me only grunt work just because I’m the new girl.</p>
<p>That got very rambly very fast. Honestly, thanks a lot to everyone reading/commenting/thinking about this; I really appreciate it.</p>
<p>Couple of points:</p>
<p>I wouldn’t worry about how colleges see “repeating 11th grade.” I’m not encouraging you to be dishonest, but one of the beauties of homeschooling is that your homeschool gets to define your homeschool transcript. So what if your homeschool changes its policies and decides that what you had been thinking of as 10th and 11th grades were now to be deemed 9th and 10th grades, and then you do 11th and 12th in a regular HS? Or suppose your homeschool decides that it now requires secondary education to go through Grade 13, as in Canada, so after this year you’ve got two more years of HS ahead of you, which you then decide to spend at the local HS (which will credit you with 11th and 12th grades by their reckoning and presumably give you their sheepskin at the end of it)?</p>
<p>As for ECs: have you investigated whether it’s possible to participate in the school’s ECs as a homeschooler? My D2 homeschools (which as a junior means she’s taking most of her classes at our public flagship, at state expense), but she’s very active in ECs at our local HS. They welcome her participation, and I believe in our state it’s legally required that they allow homeschoolers to participate. She has also taken some classes there a la carte; the school doesn’t mind because they get paid by the state on a per-student basis, with fractional pay for part-time students. The marginal cost to them is approximately zero: if there’s an available seat in a class she wants, she fills it, and if the class is already maxed out she won’t get it, but that hasn’t happened yet. There are some limitations; she can take up to 3 classes at a time without being considered a full-time student, any more than that and she’d be required to attend full-time with a full schedule. She prefers the part-time option. She likes the structure and daily spoon-feeding for a portion of her schedule but feels it would be too rigid and regimented if she had to go full-time, and she likes mixing a bit of structure with the relative autonomy and self-scheduling that goes with her college classes. She won’t get a diploma from the HS; she’ll get our homeschooling diploma, but we’ll list all her HS classes alongside her college classes on her homeschooling transcript (which will thus have a lot of grades based on independent evaluations of her work, something that is very reassuring to college admissions officers). The other advantage of attending the HS part-time is that the other kids in her ECs know her; she’s not some outside interloper, she’s accepted as a member of the HS community even though everyone knows she has one foot in and one foot out.</p>
<p>I’m in NC, which seems to be light years behind some other states on the homeschooling front. My local state university and the privates are all unwilling to let me dual-enroll as a high school student; my CC’s program is brand new and very undeveloped/restricted. The local high schools don’t allow homeschoolers to participate in any of their ECs except sports, which I have no interest in. They also don’t let kids be part-time students. </p>
<p>I can’t just start my HS transcript later because I did, in fact, attend public school for one semester. It was a very bad school; it was unsafe, the academics were extremely poor, etc. I still have a transcript from there, though. I just recently moved into the correct district for this new IB high school. Sorry for leaving this detail out. I assume I can’t just leave my old transcript out of the equation, even though it’s only one semester.</p>
<p>Reading this thread and the question posed by the OP demonstrated how efficient the IB propaganda machine has been in the United States. </p>
<p>While spending an extra year prior to attending a college has many benefits, doing this for the purpose of joining the IB program in the 11th grade must be one the silliest proposals I have heard. </p>
<p>If past threads are an indication, I expect a few IB KoolAiders to support the notion … just because the term IB came up.</p>
<p>Xiggi, will you please elaborate on your reasoning as to why this is silly? I like the IB curriculum. I also want to explore doing high school in a regular way for reasons unrelated to the program. Should I go through with the public high school idea, I want to have time to fully integrate myself academically, socially, and otherwise. I’m very interested in hearing the reasons for your opinion.</p>
<p>“I am really liking the idea of the IB program and having the chance to experience traditional high school, develop my extracurriculars, and really come into my own.”</p>
<p>I think you’re right to be concerned about whether you’ll feel stuck/stifled by the end of the two years, but I can almost guarantee that you’ll get more out of college if you attend when you’re a little older and have HS extracurricular experience.</p>
<p>Everyone is different. If you want the traditional experience, prom, yearbook, etc., then why shouldn’t you get them? Heck, it’s free! Is there any way you can meet some of your future classmates and get a sense of whether you’ll be socially in tune with some of them? Maybe you could meet some through church/temple or by attending some school sports events as a spectator?</p>