To the OP: if it would be of use to you, I would be happy to connect you privately with a friend of mine whose two daughters currently go to Mary Baldwin in the exceptionally gifted program. From what I know, they are thriving, but I don’t know all the details. Her daughters were both 15 when they started, and the older one is on track to get her masters at UVA by age 19.
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A classmate of my son attended the MB program and entered a large state university at the beginning of what would have been her HS senior year – I presume for graduate school.
I have two nice, typical, bright, occasionally lazy kids who are not “gifted,” so this isn’t something that I can speak about from experience, but from what I understand about my son’s classmate, the MB program is very personalized and is respectful to emotional as well as academic development.
Thanks for that clarification about opportunity cost, Calmom. You’ve given us a lot of food for thought. In a way, this whole process of dd questioning her high school education, researching options, arranging, by herself, for us to visit other schools including MBU has given me some real insight into her nature. She wants to be self determining. She actively takes personal responsibility for pursuing an education that is meaningful to her and serves her aims as she understands them. I have a lot of regard for this way of being, and I want to affirm her wish to take her education into her own hands. Dh and I were talking last night, and we came to the realization that we believe this is a decision that she is capable of making for herself, and that we will support her in her choice. This thread has been a source of really excellent data, and we plan to share it with her, along with our own thoughts about how we see things.
My oldest went to PEG. She, and most of her closest friends, transferred after their sophomore years. It was a good experience overall (but 12 years ago so our experience may not be relevant). Calmom is asking some good questions, some I wish we had considered, even though things worked out. I do think that a competitive prep school would have been a terrible environment for our D, while the nurturing environment at MBC allowed her to spread her academic wings in a way that was right for her. Faculty were great with challenging these younger but very bright students.
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My D received solicitation from this program after she scored high on her PSAT. I just tossed it in the trash and never gave it a second thought.
Would homeschooling be an option? I’ve known a number of profoundly gifted homeschool kids who could have gone to college at 14 or younger, but found opportunities - dual-enrollment courses, research, volunteer, work - that kept them engaged and learning until it was time to apply to college at the usual age or maybe a year early.
Hi, don’t know if you’re still following this thread but I will respond anyway just in case.
I was a PEG parent. There are strong up and downsides to the program. What you should be most concerned about is the attrition rate. It has to be somewhere in the 50-75% range. Most of the girls that entered the program with my daughter (about 2 dozen in all) did not graduate from MBC. MBC is aware this is a problem. If you ask about graduation rates you’ll get a perfectly nebulous answer. This does not mean the girls flamed out. Many use the first year of PEG to build a transcript and then transfer to somewhere else.
The Good: For those girls who really have nothing to get out of high school, a program like this is a real life saver and can start a fabulous adventure in education. Most of the successful grads (90% I think) go on to advance degrees. There is an informal network of PEGs and there’s strong kinship among them. They often look out for each other across the country and around the world. On a more practical level, the college runs a shuttle bus service for PEGs to get out to Wal Mart or Target or the doctor, etc. that’s truly convenient and useful. The PEG dorm is large and spacious and can host a variety of events. I thought the food was excellent although my daughter complained it could be too fancy. Sometimes you just want a hamburger.
The Not So Good (program related): Everyone in PEG has been an intellectual island most of their lives and can be socially awkward. Our experience was you can’t stick 24-48 islands together and expect to form the nation of Camaraderie. Combined with other factors I’ll talk about in a bit, being a PEG might be isolating for your daughter.
MBC seems ill prepared to deal with mental health challenges of girls in this cohort. The most flagrant cases get help but PEG staff, despite their training, seem slow to pick up on girls going off the rails when it’s early in the process. PEGs are carefully but, at the same time, loosely supervised. These students are the intellectual one percenters who are trying to find themselves under unusual circumstances quite unlike virtually every other teen. It wouldn’t surprise me if half of them were in need of some kind of counseling.
Mom and dad, forget any significant amount of financial aid. MBC has a token amount to throw at PEGs, but remember, your daughter is going off to school 4 years early. You lose all that investment and savings time. MBC had no sympathy on this point. Also, in applying for scholarships and aid elsewhere, most require a high school transcript and often a letter from a guidance counselor. Your daughter will have neither and no amount of phone calling or emailing will fix this. MBC is sorely in need of a PEG endowment to defray expenses.
After two years in the PEG dorm, the girls are required to move into regular housing. While policed, the atmosphere is like any other college dorm with access to pot, alcohol and sex. PEGs sign a contract promising they will refrain from illicit activity all four years they are on campus.
The college itself completely empties on weekends and holidays. Everyone gets out of town beginning noon Friday and many don’t return until Monday morning. Think ghost town in the truest sense. That’s three nights of the week (and the weekend no less!) where there are zero activities going on. There are some things specifically organized for PEGs, but in the end, the girls are on their own for entertainment more than half the time. For some, it means overindulgence in social media and darker corners of the web. PEGs do not have curfews.
The Not So Good (out of MBC control): Staunton is a company town and has little other economy. There’s a small movie theater, a place that sells ice cream and a Shakespeare theater. That’s it. With the campus essentially closed every weekend and little to do downtown, girls may isolate and spend all that free time on the internet. Some can go a couple of days without leaving their room or floor.
I know of no crime against any MBC student and the college takes great pride in being one of the safest campuses in the nation. The girls complained Staunton has its share of sketchy guys, though. They even have a nickname for them, “creepers.” We did hear from more than one girl that walking around Staunton’s tiny downtown could be uncomfortable at times because of creepers.
The girls only leave the dorm on the buddy system and all must sign in/out, post an expected return time and list all destinations. They are required to check in if plans change. After they move into regular dorms, the college no longer tracks them. A quick spin on the safety section of the MBC website still fails to show any type of escort service (although, to be fair, one may exist).
The campus is built into the side of a mountain. The terrain is crazy steep and exhausting. Everyone develops “MBC thighs.” If you’re not in shape or have mobility problems, it will definitely be an issue.
Finally, this last point needs to be thought out carefully. Consider who these girls are. Since there’s little aid, they’re all from families of means, often from far flung countries. Being so smart and socially isolated, they were coddled and indulged from an early age. They are used to getting what they want, and, being intellectually advanced, frequently call the shots at home. Save for one, all girls I knew in the program became entitled messes to varying degrees. Our daughter wasn’t raised that way and to have heard her come home the first time with her “expectations” was shocking.
So who succeeds in PEG? Girls that are obsessive about learning, are resilient self starters, mature beyond their years, very well organized and, crucially, make friends easily (you can’t emphasize that last point enough).
This is not college with training wheels, it’s the real deal. While PEGsters get some initial help in academic writing and homework, they are on their own quickly and expected to figure out time management and how to do college. The girls are bright, so it’s not the problem it might seem. It’s impossible to successfully remotely micromanage your daughter from a distance and ultimately she will have to make it on her own. Of the girls who would graduate around my daughter’s age, all struck me as premature adults beginning in their freshman year.
It might seem I’m negative on the program. Not really. For the right girl, the positives far outweigh the negatives. The question is whether your daughter is the “right girl.”
If we had it to do over again we’d do it differently. Our daughter would have gone to high school and we would have simultaneously enrolled her in the local community college. That arrangement would have been far cheaper, would have provided for age appropriate socialization with friends and guys and provided the needed intellectual stimulus she wasn’t getting at regular public school. At age 18 she probably would have had an associates degree. As it stands now, it took her more than 5 zig-zagging years to get her bachelors and my family is on the hook for more than $100,000 in loans. I will probably have to work until my mid to late 70s to pay them off.
Of the 24 PEGs in my daughter’s class, I believe MBC graduated 5 of them.
I hope my zillion word reply helps. If there’s something you want to discuss more fully, just drop me a line.
Hi,
I don’t know if you are still following the thread. I am a current PEG (senior) and can answer any questions you want. PEG has been a transformational experience for me. The last answer on this thread has a lot of inaccuracies and I can clarify these for you. I hope I can see you and your daughter at PEG this fall.
(menonn7244@marybaldwin.edu)
PEG program in MBU is a very unique program, not all gifted girls can fit in well. Even though I see most of the comments are kind of negative, I still want to suggest you - listen to what your daughter said (if you think she’s mature enough). My D attend PEG when she was 13, almost half of her cohort left the program, but she loves it (she’s always mature than her peer when she’s at traditional school setting). And don’t get me wrong, she had her bump too and we kept her home for almost a year, but she still choose to return to the program but not going to the traditional HS, and she never regrets her decision of skipping the whole high school. Now she’s a senior at MBU and thrives beautifully. Each gifted child has it’s unique situation…understand your kid’s strength/weakness and what your child’s ability is far better than just listening to negative comments. Again, PEG program is very unique and each child is different. No one knows your daughter better than you!
Please share what you decided. I’m in the exact same place. My daughter want to start there