<p>Looking for anyone that has considered or left high school early to get on with college education. My son has autism and does very well academically, but is tired of the social issues in high school. he will be going to a community college.</p>
<p>F*** high school man. Seriously, my friends don’t event want to hang out with me. =[</p>
<p>^^ To be honest community college teachers are probably not the best and therefore probably do not know how to handle high-functioning autistic student…</p>
<p>As for leaving HS early, I was given the opportunity to graduate at the end of Sophemore year but I decided against it mainly for social reasons.</p>
<p>We talked about that for my daughter, but she stayed in high school. I work at a community college, so my suggestions would be to make sure you get any accommodations set before he sets foot in the classroom and sit down with a good advisor who will guide him with course (and professor!) selection. The advisors know who the teachers are who will work with him if necessary. I hope that he has great success.</p>
<p>I cross-posted with the above post, but will disagree with the comment about CC teachers. One of the benefits of CC professors is that they are there to teach and there are many very good teachers. They in general do not do a lot of research and teach more classes than a university professor would teach.</p>
<p>I did this, and so did my husband. Both of us left high school after our junior year, attended a less selective 4-year college for a year, and then transferred to Cornell for what would have been our freshman year.
The main disadvantage, for me, is that because I was only 16 when I started college, it took me a while to figure out what I wanted to do. I did most of a biochemistry major, then bailed out and crammed a humanities major into my last 3 semesters at Cornell. Other disadvantages: I would have enjoyed spending 4 years at Cornell. It was slightly awkward applying for summer jobs during my college years as a high-school dropout.
On the other hand, I was able to start graduate school at 20, finish my PhD quickly, and get tenure as a university professor shortly after 30. This has been a huge benefit because I did not have to have babies while also trying to get tenure at a research institution: for women, the biological clock and the tenure clock are ordinarily ticking at the same time. Not something I thought about at age 16, I can assure you.
My husband, whose first year was entirely paid for by a merit scholarship, ended up spending 4 years at Cornell in order to do a triple major.
We have encouraged our son, now age 18, to stay in high school and maximize his opportunities there; they are much more extensive than when we were young. He is, however, spending his senior year mornings taking one or two courses at our the local state flagship university, and his afternoons taking his final requirements for high school.</p>