I’m going to be 17 when I graduate high school because I’m going to graduate a year early. I’m graduating early because I’m home schooled. My mom says I “still having raising to do”, but I take care of my responsibilities. I’m mature, and I do all of my chores. All of my teachers say I’m extremely mature for my age and that I deserve to be in college. I’m also not happy in my town. I honestly don’t know what to do. My mom will say she’s okay with me graduating early, but then she’ll change her mind and say it’s not okay. I’m starting to get really frustrated because I’m being set up to graduate but she says I can’t move to college. I want to try to get into Columbia University or something similar. I want to be able to go to the college of my choice, not hers. Sorry for the long post but I need advice lol.
Seventeen is actually quite common an age to graduate. That aside, if your parents are going to be paying for college, you’re kind of beholden to their wishes. What does your mom envision you doing for the year between graduation and college? Are they limiting you to where you can apply? What are the limits?
You need to have a lot more choices than Columbia.
I went to college at 17 and so did my daughter. Have to say I wouldn’t be happy with letting a 17 year old live in NYC. My daughter went to a much smaller school, lived in a freshman dorm (so she wasn’t the only 17 year old), and the small city she was in was quite contained. She mostly stayed on campus but could go to the beach, to the mall, to the movies. She did not have a car so was always with someone.
Show your mother a plan. How will school be paid for, how will you get there and back, why Columbia (or other schools), what are your plans for a major? Talk about is, not just ‘I want THIS.’
Love the Idea! I actually made a full power point to show my mom to try and convince her to let me go to NSU in Tahlequah. It’s only about 3 hours from where we live, and I have an uncle who lives 30 minutes away from the campus. She still said she doesn’t want me to go. She brags about how mature I am to her friends and family so I don’t understand.
She wants me to go to a college in our town, but they don’t have the major I want. A college that’s 30 minutes away does have it, but it’s Arkansas and she says she only wants me to go to college in Oklahoma so I can be In State for cheaper tuition
If money is going to b the defining factor, look at schools where you could see merit scholarships based on your stats.
So your mom is okay with you going at 18 but not 17? Did I just read that right? Wow.
What you are telling us is a classic example of the infantilization of teenagers that happens everyday. Age does not define you, no matter what anyone says. There is a false narrative in our society that you magically become an adult at 18. You don’t just become an adult at some arbitrary age such as 18 or 21. You become an adult when your body says you’re an adult which is called puberty. You have probably let them (society) brainwash you into believing that teenagers are children which they rebrand as “adolescence” to be more discreet. There in fact is no such thing as an adolescence in human beings, it biologically does not exist. Some animals such as Butterflies do have an adolescence. They start out as a Larva which is their childhood, then they are a pupa which is their adolescence and then they are a butterfly which is their adulthood. In human beings, we are either pre pubescent or post pubescent. The reason that you never hear this is because we as teenagers have been so repressed that we have lost out voice and our freedom of thought.
Have your mother read Teen 2.0 by Dr. Robert Epstein. National Indie Excellence Awards, first prize in the Parenting and Family category Arguing that adolescence is an unnecessary period of life that people are better off without, this groundbreaking study shows that teen confusion and hardships are caused by outmoded systems that were designed to destroy the continuum between childhood and adulthood. Documenting how teens are isolated from adults and are forced to look to their media-dominated peers for knowledge, this discussion contends that by infantilizing young people, society does irrevocable harm to their development and well-being. Instead, parents, teachers, employers, and others must rediscover the adults in young people by giving them authority and responsibility as soon as they exhibit readiness. Teens are highly capable–in some ways more than adults–and this landmark discussion offers paths for reaching and enhancing the competence in America’s youth. https://www.amazon.com/Teen-2-0-Children-Families-Adolescence/dp/1884995594
Also I see that you have 2004 in your username. I was born in 2004 as well. If you were born in 2004 you have some time before you graduate and some time to get your mother out of her ageist state of mind. My colleagues and I would be more than happy to write a letter for your mother about why her thinking is wrong and that you can and should go at 17 to NYC or wherever you please. I’m actually entering college at 16 but my parents are encouraging about it. If your mother won’t budge have you looked at University of Oklahoma? I have family that went there and I know OU is a great school.
My colleagues and I would be more than happy to write a letter for your mother about why her thinking is wrong and that you can and should go at 17 to NYC or wherever you please. I work with and am a longtime member of the National Youth Rights Organization. We work to combat ageism against young people.
Wow, I’ve never heard this point of view! I like the unique answer! I’m trying to get everything taken care of because next school year is going to be my last year of high school, so I want to have a plan. I have considered OU; they seem like a very good school. She says she only wants me to go to our local university until I’m 18, but they don’t offer French, so I don’t want to be behind.
I started college at an Ivy at 16. But that was going on 30 years ago when teenagers often had to grow up much faster than today. I wasn’t the youngest either. In fact, at my college graduation the valedictorian was 18.
I agree with the poster above that American society infantilizes those who should be considered young adults.
There is no local university or community college that you can take courses at as a high school student (i.e. “dual enrollment”)? You can get a taste of college “while still in high school”, and succeeding in college courses “while still in high school” may improve your chance of admission when you apply to other colleges as a frosh, as well as possibly giving you advanced placement when you go to college. To do this, do not graduate from high school while taking courses at the local university or community college so that you preserve your frosh applicant status.
I went through puberty at 11. I was NOT ready for college at 11. Some are ready at 17, some not at 19.
18 isn’t really arbitrary. That’s the age most are at high school graduation, it’s the age you can vote and sign a contract, join the military or get married. You don’t HAVE to do those things, but a 17 year old can’t do them without permission (and no voting even with permission).
There’s really not much you can do if your parents say no. You can wait a year. You could go to the local school and take the basic requirements, take French online or where you are currently taking it (you are homeschooled so you must have a way to take it). All those colleges will still be there in 2 years. Right now it is looking like a good number of college students will be online next year.
@twoinanddone I don’t mean to derail this thread but come on, 18 is extremely arbitrary. 18 is the age to vote or join the military because we as an American society have selected 18 as the entry into adulthood which is fundamentally wrong. You weren’t ready at 11 because of exactly what I said, the artificial extension of childhood prolongs your childishness into your teens and beyond. You’re thinking inside the walls of our society, think outside them and you will see what I mean.
OP- Your first year you would most likely be doing gen-eds so you wouldn’t be behind if you wanted to major in French. Since your homeschooled, you could take these classes through a local cc while still technically being a high school student and then graduate after you were finished with the cc courses. This would be allow you to apply as a freshman rather than a transfer and depending on your state’s laws, the classes could be free. This is exactly what I am doing to gain some experience before I go off to wherever.
Are you graduating in the class of 2022? In that case, the majority of students are born in 2004 as well, and many of them will be 17 when graduating.
This sounds like an excellent opportunity for dual enrollment at the local college if offered as @ucbalumnus mentioned. My D plans to do this her last year of hs. In our state it is FREE–tuition, books…we just have to pay for transportation. I like this idea for her because it will allow her to experience college life with the safety net of home and earn some college credit to free up time when she goes to college to explore a bit or study abroad and still graduate in 4 years or even early. My niece did dual enrollment and then went to college there after hs graduation and was able to graduate in 3 years. I started college at 17, but turned 18 within a week or two…I think my mom had to sign a form for legal issues since I was still a minor.
If she’s paying for school, then sorry. It’s her decision. It won’t kill you to wait to go to school like everyone else. You can use the year to work and save money for college, or you can go to high school for your senior year. It’ll make an application to a big university even stronger.
A homeschool mom here, also agree that dual enrollment is your best choice. You get to take college courses, and you can be creative in finding ways to Practice your French through online courses or contacts.
Have you checked to make sure you don’t qualify for in-state rates at the Arkansas school, either by test scores and/or living in an adjacent state?
A big sign of maturity is recognizing and adapting to the fact that the conditions of your life aren’t going to be exactly as you like them to be, and making the most of your situation. I don’t advocate having to spend your life passively accepting the status quo…but there are times to shake things up, and times to bide your time in a creative and productive fashion. Banging your fists in an “I want, I want” sort of way is infantile. Waiting one year to go away to college is not tragic and won’t be a blip in the scheme of your life.
@Homeschooler14, on various threads you talk a lot about how the U.S. is different in this regard than other places. But you also have to remember that, even if this is true, you can’t just cherry-pick one aspect of a person’s culture apart from other aspects of their culture/upbringing. So, if young people are ready for adulthood at, say, sixteen in some cultures it may be that every aspect of their upbringing/life experience has been consistent with this expectation, preparing the individual for this goal since babyhood. You can’t expect an individual coming from a different context to magically attain the same when the whole enculturation and development process is different. Also, keep in mind that cultures in which young people are considered adults at a much earlier age tend to put young people into hard work supporting their families at a very early ages (farm labor, factory work, parenthood), and are NOT often given the first world luxury of a university education away from home just because they are tired of their small towns and want a new challenge. Also keep in mind that these cultures often tend to be more hierarchical and authoritarian in nature than ours…young adults given full adult responsibilities are on the lower rungs of adulthood and still have to kowtow to their elders in significant ways to an extent that would seem extremely constricting to young adults (in their twenties and thirties) in the U.S. You talk big in theory, but your life experience is still quite limited, and it shows.
I’m graduating in the class of 2021 because I have enough credits to graduate a year early.