I imagine it depends on the school. At mine, yes. Although it may require doubling up at some point.
And it depends on the kidâs interest and aptitude, but I agree itâs possible.
I also want to add something about boarding schools and very âpointyâ kids, those kids who have deep and exceptional skills in one area. Many boarding schools have the resources to accommodate these kids and see value in having their talents in their communities, but if that talent is a sole focus or the student is looking to reach the pinnacle of that talent, boarding school may not be the way to go. They really arenât designed to groom a dancer for the Russian ballet, for instance, a singer for the opera, an athlete for the Olympics, etc. A few exceptional BS students may reach those goals (and the schools love to list them in their marketing materials), but often not due solely to BS resources. There are probably better-fit schools for nurturing single-focus talents, like arts schools or math and science schools or club sports programs, etc.
We often see parents here, for example, concerned that their math prodigies get a certain level of instruction and attention and, as I posted upthread, some boarding schools can accommodate this, but if that is the sole reason for choosing a boarding school, there may be better options for that student. Also, I didnât mean to imply (if anyone took it that way) that our son was a math prodigy or pointy kid. He wasnât. He was just very good at math and Choate was able to take him as far as he wanted to go, but he was not a kid who was interested in math competitions or solving math problems for fun. He didnât hang with that crowd. He was just exceptionally well-prepared for his college program and, at least in math, is soaring there. But he still doesnât clean his room, so Iâd say the jury on the effectiveness of his education is still out.
@CaliMax I think even at BS, doubling up or summer school would be needed. Alg 1 and Geometry are reasonable for doubling up. The math sequence is common afterward, Alg 2, PreCal, Calculus.
It really depends on the kid and it is very important to know your kid or yourself well for guiding/planning the curriculum.
My younger son is very different from the rest of family for whom math comes easy. I think he has some form of dyscalculia, never learned multiplication table, and was unable to read analog clocks. He always said âI love math,â however and I wondered how he could love something he is unable to do. He would be always placed into accelerated math from 3rd grade (because teachers knew his older brother) and then be pulled back. He is managing well in his calculus class, but he is still unable to multiply 8 by 9 without thinking for a long time.
For another plug on AoPS, I spent the summer after his 7th grade with him working on the book âPrealgebraâ by Art of Problem Solving. He had already finished the 2-year sequence, Algebra 1A (6th) and Algebra 1B (7th), but I felt his math was still shaky. We sat down together, and he did every problem on the Prealgebra book. Well, we skipped a few in last couple chapters. It is a challenging book but very good even for an 8th grader. He went on to take proof geometry in 8th grade. The summer was a tremendous help for his math foundation going into high school math.
@payn4ward My grandfather was always terrible at arithmetic (and still is), and he ended up going to Harvard as a math major and teaching and publishing in math at UMass for almost 50 years.
@Ravenclaw3 Thanks!
I once talked to a physics professor (a physics PhD from Northwestern) and he told me he was never able to memorize multiplication table either. That put me at ease 
My son needs to thank him for that. I had started to amass Kumon and Singapore math books for him but stopped right then and gave up drilling and let him be.
Funny thing is that my younger son went to MathCounts in 8th grade and his school team won the 3rd place so he brought home a trophy! Imagine that. My older son a math whizz never brought home a trophy with all his math competitions. (It has more to do with other schools not having math whizzes that year but thatâs another story )
Back in the day, I took Algebra I in 9th and BC calculus in 12th without doubling up. The way our local schools do this now is to start sooner with algebra possible in 6th or even sooner, then slow things down in high school with a year of precalculus, a year of calculus AB and a year of calculus BC, so they donât have to teach beyond calculus. I heard about one student who took âhonors calculusâ in 8th, then AB in 9th and then BC in 10th â essentially three years to do a one year calculus course! It is painful for those who love math and many seek other optionsâŠ
I hope that someday all boarding schools will be able to accommodate those with more preparation in math, especially with SOHS and AOPS as options for many students who come into school with a lot of background. However, although it seems @ChoatieMomâs son had a good math experience at Choate, this was one of the schools whose staff specifically told me that it would be difficult to make math work there for my child. Another schoolâs AO said âI think school x can handle your childâ in an unconvincing tone. And finally, one schoolâs Director of Admissions was quite candid that there was not enough curriculum in math and this would not be a good fit â this was much appreciated. Two schools offered a claim that a local college could offer math, but the logistics of working that out seemed dubious at best. While taking independent study can be a great experience, my child didnât want to do that for four years and most of all sought peers. These were ultimately found and hugely appreciated. I agree with @SatchelSF that all boarding schools cannot handle all kids in math, although that is frequently claimed on this board. If appropriate coursework in math matters to an advanced student, Iâd suggest asking a lot of questions. Schools tend to gloss over this and claim it all works out or have students repeat (and no, a boarding school math course does not tend to be more rigorous than AoPS), or have students do independent study. Personally, there were two schools that would have worked for my child in math, two that would have worked in science without significant repetition, and none that really accommodated needs in English. With the outside options, there are a lot of kids coming in pretty advanced with many kids in BC calculus or higher in 9th at PAA.
Very well said, @gungablue. I had much the same experience as you in speaking with boarding schools regarding advanced math students. I do think that the traditional culture of boarding school to some extent has simply not caught up with the range of talent that is out there. One often hears about âstudents shouldnât rush through mathematics,â etc., but this typically comes from parents whose own experiences were 30+ years ago. There are many kids out there who not only have the preparation and experience, but also the innate ability that has now flowered through the availability of online resources over the past 15 years, to quickly exhaust both the limits of any boarding school as well as any teacher there (with some notable exceptions like Po-Shen Lo, Zumin Feng or Sam Vandervelde, etc.). Day schools are quite a lot better in this regard, and are less reluctant to recognize the wide disparity of ability within their classes. As well, day schools tend to have closer options for dual enrollment when necessary. Of the traditional boarding schools, only PEA and PAA can really handle advanced kids in a smooth way in my opinion, perhaps Choate and Milton to a lesser extent as well. YMMV.
Also, @gungablue is also very right about the âslowing downâ of modern education in math and science. I, for example, entered high school at 12 turning 13 (30+ years ago) without any formal algebra preparation and yet completed BC Calculus in 11th grade. That wasnât too difficult to do back then. It is nearly impossible today, largely for sociological reasons and a stubborn unwillingness to acknowledge that kids learn at different rates. (Also, I encountered no issues whatsoever enrolling directly in AP Biology as a high school freshman, again something that was not so difficult back then.) The modern education system can be very frustrating at times.
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Boarding schools are not specialty schools and none claim to be. If someone is looking for an intensity of education in one particular area, a school that focuses on this area would be a better option. No boarding school includes âschool of science and mathâ or âschool of designâ or âconservatory,â etc. in its name. For good reason. I can appreciate that some here are looking for more focus in a particular area, but there is no âslowing downâ in these areas at boarding schools. They provide more than adequate education in all areas for non-pointy students and at levels such that no college in the country questions the rigor of the education in those areas. It sounds to me like some would like to see boarding schools offer something that other schools specialize in, and those schools sound like much better options for students for whom that specialty is a priority. Boarding schools do what they do very well but are not for everyone and should not be judged against programs they are not competing against.
One suggestion - for those looking for guidance on advanced math (or any subject) - I would strongly encourage you to speak to the head of the respective department rather than just going by the AO. We were told a number of things by AOs that turned out not to be true when we spoke to the department heads and others at the school.
My DD finished Geometry Honor and Algebra II by Grade 8. She will be taking PRECALC Honors as freshman. Unless you really strong in math, she would not recommend jumping ahead. She sees kids who loves math at the beginning of this journey of accelerated math program but now in Grade 8, a lot of classmates hate math because it is no longer memorizing formula. You need to fully understand the concepts. You are stuck in the accelerated path, unless you does it so bad that you need to repeat the class. If you are at B+, A-, you will continue and need to work hard. At least at her current school, getting an A is not easy. You cannot really study for math test. There is tricks to a questions and you never see it. It requires a full understanding of the concepts. My DD has 650 SAT in Grade 7 talent search. Every quarter, my DD is at the edge of A- and A. Her current class consists of kids from Grade 8 to Grade 11.
I totally agree that the department heads offer better information. At two boarding schools, we got âeveryone is challenged hereâ from the AOs but much clearer information from department heads that independent study would be the only option, or that the local college option wasnât really feasible, or that all students take intro to chemistry, even kids who have already taken AP chemistry! Or that all students take the same history, even students who have already scored a 5 in APUSH.
It seems obvious to me, but students advanced in one area are often advanced in other areas and thus seeking a higher-level education in multiple subjects rather than a specialty school. This is easier to find at some boarding schools than at local schools. I enter these discussions because there are many advanced kids and they tend to congregate in certain schools and itâs worth asking questions if you have such a child. A student advanced in math may also be advanced in English and science and history. In some schools, there are many kids like this and options for appropriate classes tend to be rich and plentiful. In other schools, there are fewer. In some schools, you might be the only 9th grader in calculus. In others, there may be multiple calculus sections with mostly 9th graders. If these things matter to you or your child, itâs worth asking a lot of questions.
Itâs obvious, but worth repeating. The myth of the pointy math kid who is holed up studying for the AMC12 or the SAT in 7th grade to the exclusion of other interests and pursuits is largely just that, a myth.
Itâs also obvious that the rigor at any school is of necessity going to be tailored to the intelligence level of its students. Thereâs nothing new under the sun here, folks. Look at the standardized test scores coming in and going out, and there is your answer about how rigorous the program is really going to be.
I agree with those who suggested speaking to the math heads ( or heads of any department where you kid might be âpointyâ). I spoke at length to several schools and learned a lot. I learned not only what they offer, but more importantly how do they âfeelâ about kids skipping courses, doubling up or even creating their own class. Some are really supportive of kids who are on far ends of the Bell curve. Others, think all their students are all equally suited to high level work. I would also suggest asking questions about possible conflicts. Will a core course conflict with another specialized course? What about labs or anything else. My favorite question is, can you please tell me about outstanding math kids who have been really successful challenging themselves and have also balanced the right classes in math. One parent was speaking about her perfectionist son who was extroverted. My kiddo is none of those things so the answer was very different. He talked about mid range, high level and extraordinary kids (one in 10,000) and how they fared at his school.
The only BS that could not support the highest levels of learning had the following: reluctance to support self designed class, or belief that all students did high level work and that was good enough; or reluctance or rule against student taking math courses via colleges, CTY, AOP, etc. and using these as a building blocks. Someone mentioned specialized or magnet schools and I looked at our local version. The math program was far less rigorous than top BSâs. Not to mention none had the ability to create your own course.
Still looking. If you have a math kid ( or any other with a deep interest) perhaps you have done this. Before spending 250K, I want to know that all of the programs that matter are available in a manner that my child can access.
On the other side of things, your kid who was the most mathy kid in her/his middle school with all of the CTY/AMC/Mathcounts/AOPS credentials may find herself/himself among kids even more mathy and having to work really hard for the first time. And that is important too! (I am obviously not talking about the extraordinary kids!)