<p>Well, how is it? I know it depends on the school, so consider top math/science/tech schools (Stanford, CMU, MIT, Harvard). My little sister is in IMO/IoI/IPhO Olympiad training and she performs very well, according to her supervisors. My dad wants to have her take exceedingly difficult courses at local colleges and then full time at universities, she is 8. My dad envisions her going off "for good," in about 1 1/2 to 2 years, would this be a good idea? I don't think so, but I want some concrete reasons as to why this would be bad. </p>
<p>If someone can explain why this would be good, that would be much appreciated too. Thanks in advance!</p>
<p>She’s eight? Is she emotionally and socially mature enough to do go off to college like that?</p>
<p>It seems like if she does that, she’ll be missing out on her childhood. Everyone, including gifted children, should be able to experience “being a child” before being forced to grow up and go away to university like that. That experience is irreplaceable and once the opportunity is gone, it’s gone.</p>
<p>Such early matriculation into college will surely be at the expense of healthy social maturation. There are enough outside resources for extraordinarily gifted children to be academically challenged without resorting to sending them to college full time.</p>
<p>She’s a cool kid, I mean she has been on my FIRST Robotics team (unofficially) (she was arguably the greatest contributor). I think she could hold her own, but are the college kids nice? I wouldn’t know because I haven’t met many, but I doubt they are all as advertised…</p>
<p>Whether nice or not (both of which inhabit college campuses in large numbers), most college students would likely feel quite uncomfortable around an academic peer who is ~8 years younger than they are. I simply cannot imagine college being a healthy or responsible social environment for a nine- or ten-year-old child, even a cool one.</p>
<p>She has many decades of life ahead of her; there’s little to no reason to jump-start her collegiate academic career, but quite a few dangers.</p>
<p>She also tends to be unforgiving to her superiors, could that become a problem? Or does that differ from professor to professor? Would the teachers accept her skills and allow her to receive some kind of special treatment, for lack of a better term…</p>
<p>I keep telling my dad ALL of this stuff but he doesn’t believe any of this to be substantive. :/</p>
<p>What I meant was, she points out little mistakes and is used to being ahead of even her most gifted teachers. Some of her last teachers complain about this, do college professors also do the same thing?</p>
<p>Have you any of you guys had to go through this before? I was in a similar situation albeit to a lesser extent but similar nonetheless. I took Integral/Differential Calc and Boolean Algebra at 13 at CU Boulder.</p>
<p>Abstinence from pedantically citing superiors’ errors is a skill that many precocious children need to develop. It is, in fact, one of many – thus my support for waiting so that this and other sorts of developments (not to mention social experiences) can occur.</p>
<p>I agree. I don’t know how that would work in time, but I see what you’re saying. I don’t understand why it is such a problem for students to accept younger kids. I mean, she is not socially awkward (if she is, then I am too) because she is basically a younger clone of me. Do people just not give younger kids a chance because of the reputation they have?</p>
<p>Socially, they simply cannot relate well with someone so much younger; they’ll feel compelled to restrain their language, humor, etc. in a way that may appear patronizing. Academically, they may feel threatened by someone who is ostensibly of similar same-time aptitude but much younger age.</p>
<p>Wow… Your family gene pool must be filled with pixie dust… Anyway, it is usually not healthy for an 8 year old to go off to college, but maybe your sister is different (she obviously is), but how would we know? Some people aren’t meant to have a “normal” childhood. i.e Maybe she is meant to spend her teen years solving Fermat’s Theorem by hand. We can’t offer you any advice on whether she should or shouldn’t…</p>
<p>I concede the point about the social differences but are the academic gaps at prestigious top schools THAT great? I mean, its hard to imagine her NOT going to a top school. She can manage a perfect paper on the IMO given the correct circumstances, I’m not too knowledge on the other two Olympiads.</p>
<p>As I indicated, there are meaningful resources for the enrichment of students that are commensurate with the rare magnitude of their giftedness. Progressing normally along the formal educational path does not preclude academic exploration or imply relegation to intellectual stagnation.</p>
<p>From a logistic standpoint, top schools are not keen on accepting students that are very unusually young, even clearly talented ones. Most pre-teen college students that I’m aware of attend schools that are not widely considered elite. However, any well-resourced research university ought to have the institutional currency to fertilize a highly intelligent student’s abilities. </p>
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<p>If that is true, this case is more extraordinary than I realized. She is able to reproducibly score perfectly on the IMO test? This capacity would justify labeling her among a handful of the most mathematically precocious youth in the world, even including students ten years older.</p>
<p>Thanks for you input, overachiever92. To be honest, traditional curriculums do not unleash the potential encased within a child, even top schools do not do this. I think if a child wants to progress quickly, given the correct circumstances, he/she should be allowed to. </p>
<p>By the way, my dad did not force my sister into any of this. She did most of this herself. Most of her abilities stem from general curiosity (thus, self taught) and her friendship with me (she actually can do my abstract algebra homework with ease).</p>
<p>Well if she has her mind set on what she wants to do, and has proven that she can do it with (near) perfect execution, why bother with other unnecessary classes (general humanities)? I mean she can manage those classes, but why bother? Surely special cases are made…</p>
<p>Silverturtle, I’m not sure if she can go 10/10 on IMO tests and produce perfect papers constantly, but she can surely manage 3-4, 5-6 if she’s lucky. I doubt there are any kids that can produce 6-7+ perfect papers, given the rarity of mathematically precious kids with widespread abilities in all/most math subjects (the demographic needed to fulfill the benchmark in consideration).</p>