Parents of kids “too young for college” let’s talk

Parents Forum
41

@thealternative: While I did not go to U of T - that’s a good guess and it was definitely on my short list. I chose to go to Boston for undergrad.

@DreamerMom: You are very welcome. The one thing I failed to mention above was how surprised I was to be homesick - I was so ready to go, I didn’t consider how I was going to feel once I arrived - but, I was HOMESICK. My mom made a surprise extra trip down to visit me (a few weeks after Parents’ Weekend) and we had a wonderful time exploring the city, dining out with my new friends, and just hanging out - that made a huge difference for me.

As for the ‘odd’ experiences - it is hard to feather out what was due to my age VS other factors. Some of the odd experiences that stand out are:
(1) needing a classmate to rent a hotel room for me when a huge gang of us travelled out of town (made me feel like a ‘little girl’ but no one else cared);
(2) getting really sick and having to go to the University Health Care facility VS an in town doctor bc of insurance (so make sure uni HC is well staffed in the evening and that the HIPPA forms allow the health care staff to discuss things with you),
(3) not being able to open a bank account until Parent’s Weekend because my parents needed to co-sign my application (who knew? Although, if she is staying in the same country, a new bank account is probably not necessary),

(4) lack of driving experience and not feeling totally safe alone in a taxi (mitigated by great public transport),
(5) difficulty getting internships off campus (but the profs had great opportunities on campus),
(6) difficulty getting well-paying jobs off campus (but the on campus jobs were AMAZING - library, registrar, admissions, cafeteria, RA (which paid AND covered R&B),
(7) age difference & lack of experience with romantic relationships (this one just is what it is)
(8) it is difficult to find a good fake ID when you are 16 and the drinking age is 21, so unless there are clubs where you can get in to dance/listen to music while underage but not be served, that age gap might sting a bit

As for my career - I am no longer in the workforce but I found that the tech world was a great place for me - I worked in transportation (FAA), healthcare (CDC), telecom (AT&T), and finally consulting (E&Y). My age was only a challenge for the first job - but I imagine she will find a way to get her foot in the door and then knock 'em dead.

Again - best of luck, keep an eye on her, and let her fly because it sounds like she is ready

42

@howdidwegethere So thankful for your shared ideas and experience.

Good to know - I am one of the helicopter parents (hence the reason she is trying to get away as fast as she can :smile:) and she is very independent. So I do try to give her space, but was already planning on pretending like I suddenly have a great fascination with the city of her choosing or have an urgent work related travel :wink:

43

My husband’s younger sister went to college at 16. She attended the state flagship in her hometown. She was brilliant and a ballerina. Early college was a disaster for her. She couldn’t handle the freedom and got into drugs. She’s 64 now and never recovered. :frowning:

44

Handling the freedom is a big part of the question. Many of my peers were not able to handle the academic and social discipline needed to succeed and “flunked out” of my program.

45

Per the Crimson, 11% of Harvard’s current class of 2024 is under 18, so it really isn’t that rare.

46

Inspired by your comment I actually looked up data on NCES site and they reporting that about 20k students between ages 14 and 17 are enrolled in degree granting postsecondary institutions in 2018. I am curious to see if there is data available that breaks down this even further by specific age year.

1 Like
47

@DreamerMom, not sure if you still need advice now. My own experience is from the Dark Ages. I enrolled in an Ivy at 16. I was still physically maturing – and grew at least an inch my freshman year. I had no difficulty academically – I graduated magna cum laude in a STEM field at a university in which honors were hard to get. But, socially, I would have been better off doing something that let me develop more social skills. I think I wasn’t as confident as I should have been academically either. A gap year might have helped there.

When I was in grad school at another Ivy (I attended 3 of HYPMS and taught at one), I had a 19 year old in the second year of his PhD program in math across the hall from me. Brash, immature, but interesting and not surprisingly pretty smart. I have kept in touch with him over the years and I think he made a number of questionable career decisions. I think he would have benefitted from slowing down his pace.

Normally, I would strongly recommend a gap year. I don’t know what a gap year will be like in 2020-2021. Also, if the 2021 academic year is largely virtual, then I don’t know that my advice to take a gap year would be that sensible.

Assuming 2021-2022 will be on campus, let me relay my son’s experience. My son took a gap year after graduating from HS. He didn’t even take SATs/ACTs or apply to college until the fall of his gap year. It was a different era, but we didn’t have an organized pre-planned gap year program (he hates organized programs). He campaigned for a Presidential candidate, worked on finishing a novel with a co-author (who somehow couldn’t do her part), was a research assistant at a local university, worked on improving his reading fluency with a grad student at a local university, studying painting/drawing, playing in adult Ultimate Frisbee and basketball leagues, and doing an internship with a State Superior Court judge who had judged the finals of his HS’s moot court competition. He also had a serious surgery that we had deferred to the gap year. He got in to some very good schools, did extremely well at one of them, and has been very successful since then.

He says that the extra year of maturity benefitted him. He was always a HIGHLY goal-oriented kid (perhaps an understatement) but he thought the extra year helped him focus in his freshman year.

So, one can succeed going to school early. It may not handicap some folks, but I would have preferred to have taken a gap year, my across the hall neighbor in my grad dorm probably would have benefitted greatly from taking a gap year, and my son believes that taking a gap year did help him.

I hope this is helpful.

48

It can be difficult for younger students, especially socially if they are living in the dorms. I always looked at sleepaway colleges as half way houses where kids can experiment with sex, sexuality, drugs , drinking and all sorts of other things. This is a serious judgement call a parent has to make.

Yes, I’ve seen it work out. But the vast majority of the time, the student commutes to a local college. In some cases , a parent moves with the student do the college of choice is local to them.

My son is dating a young woman who was 15 when she graduated high school and started college. She commuted to a local private college where she got a generous tuition scholarship. After two years , and a 4.0 at that school, she transferred to an Ivy League college where she got her degree. By then she was 17.5 which was close to the age of many freshman and that she was in upper class courses was not an issue. The academics were never the issue. I know another woman who did the same. Yet another with some psychological issues that was accepted to a top school but parents decided she needed to stay at home until issues resolved. She ended up going Ivy for her graduate school.

I also know a young woman who graduated from college at a very age, went on to law school and got that degree before she was of age to take the bar and practice.

My UG college had a program specifically for very young students who were academically ready for college , and I have two very close friends who started at college at ages 15 and 16.

Where are all of these young prodigies now? They’ve mostly assimilated into the population and none of them particularly outstanding as compared to the top kids that went on to college at a more standard age.

49

@shawbridge Thank you for your perspective. We are looking at enrollment in the fall of 2022 so still lots of decisions ahead of us. We might be virtual then too, who knows. While I am a big proponent of gap year, it does depend on what one can do with that gap year. We will see how her interests shift in the next year. I do suspect she will be getting anxious to get out of the house and go away to college. She is the type who wants to be surrounded by likeminded peers so college is a way for her to find her fit and community. I am not sure we can actually offer her that if she stays with us for additional year. We visited a couple of colleges this week and she got really excited about one of them and endless possibilities of what she can do/study in college.

@cptofthehouse I do think for most of the kids skipping a grade or two is not a matter of being a prodigy, but a necessity of finding a right environment for educational and emotional needs. Not sure that the expectations would be to become next Nobel laureate. Just want her to be happy and not suffer through useless repetition and boredom :slight_smile: BTW, how are your friends doing now? Are they happy to have started college at that age or do they have regrets?

50

It’s a mixed batch as to how they felt about going to college at that early age. Academically, it was the clearly the best way to proceed. Socially, emotionally, I don’t think anyone knows what is the best answer. I think a lot more schools have dual enrollment programs now, so that kids can socially stay with their peers and still take the courses that match their level. My youngest two have friends who were taking mostly college course the last two years of high school. Those kids went off to Harvard, Columbia
and Yale, perhaps a year earlier than usual, age wise, but they were very much in step with their peers the entire time

My one son had second semester sophomore standing in terms of college credits when he started college. But he went into a major that still required 4 years. He was able to take course in great depth in his area of study as he had all of the general education requirements out of the way.

The “amazing” kids that started a lot of social media and are this generation’s giants —a number of them lived in our area, some went to school with my kids. They went to college at the regular age, the most selective schools, when they could have easily gone to college years before they did.

51

@DreamerMom, I understand as ShawD really wanted to get out of Dodge and start college. She was not early but her birthday was in June and she was often the youngest kid in her class in public school (close to a year younger than the oldest kids in the class) and when we moved her to private school, parents had frequently had held their kids back to give them developmental advantages and she was sometimes two to three years younger than her classmates. We thought she could benefit by a gap year to mature. But, she was so eager to go and fell in love with a school with great school spirit. She spent one semester there. She was a pretty good student but it was work to get her to get preemptive tutoring and help but she finally did. However, in week one, she decided switch from biology to be more hands-on and study nursing. Her existing school told her she’d have to reapply as a freshman because she had been admitted to the Faculty of Science and not the Faculty of Nursing and couldn’t transfer within the school.

The good news: She was admitted for the second semester to a five year BSN/MSN program and somehow instantly matured. It was interesting to watch. She started working really hard and wanted to be at the top of her class and was for the remaining 4.5 years. She is a very bright kid and while she was doing her nursing clinicals in various places including Harvard, BU and Tufts teaching hospitals, doctors would out of the blue tell her was very smart and should go to medical school. She said she wanted to be a Nurse Practitioner and was fully employed as one by age 23.

Anyway, we saw confidence and work levels soar pretty much upon the transfer. So, it happens. Might have happened sooner had she taken a gap year, but not sure.

52

Only an occasional viewer/poster by now. Gifted kids ARE different. They will always be the round/square peg in the opposite hole for many things.

Our son with a fall birthday went early for kindergarten (age 4 at start), was with first graders in spring and reading at a 4th or 5th grade level. Not ready for straight second grade and was in a 1-3 mixed class, a 3-4 class and skipped 4th grade. He started at flagship U while still 16.

He was with the same cohort for 5th through HS so he had the same experiences as those he started college with. An introvert, he had like minded HS friends. Like parents, socially not gifted.

I looked at gap year possibilities but before age 18 there are so many limitations for travel and such for minors. He needed intellectual stimulation so college work at a top tier school to be with peers was needed. Working or doing things independently would not have been a good choice.

My biggest worry in sending him off to big U was whether he would get up in time for classes. This was the kid whose loud alarm we heard down the hall but he was oblivious to. He did not have any problems- he was motivated to attend. The legal drinking age is 21 (unlike my college years) so he was not different than other college freshmen (you can tell your kid does not have a virgin liver when they easily handle a holiday wine at home).

He had several Honors classes- he wasn’t even the youngest in his freshman honors physics as there was a 14 year old girl doing WI Youth Options in the class. He ended up with an honors math major and added computer science (doing a 5th year) when he over reached for elite grad schools (math is extremely competitive, he was not the top student at his top 20 U). He ended up working, recruited eventually by a top company. He likes development more than research and CS advanced degrees are not useful. He self teaches anything he needs. We were disappointed he did not choose to go further- MS and/or PhD but he is still just as smart and well read et al.

OP- going on to a top tier college where your D can be with intellectual peers is likely the best bet. Colleges don’t care (or often know) a student’s age. No the HS social environment. Being among like minded students and finally among intellectual peers is wonderful.

Yes, there will be social issues as there always have been because she is different than the typical college student. Public flagships are two tiered- the usual and the gifted that populate honors programs/colleges.

Let her go for it- never hold her back to be with age mates.

53

@wis75 thank you for sharing your son’s story. I am thinking among that same lines and not intended to hold her back just because of her age. Mostly concerned with the right fit. Gap year is on the table but only if she will not find a right fit (not gets accepted in U of her choice).

We started visiting colleges on our list and getting a feel of what she likes and dislikes. So far I did not see anything that would indicate she will not fit with the right crowd. People who don’t know how old she is, have not doubts she is 16 (including her teachers at school). All of them slightly shocked when finding out she is 14. It can be good and bad, depending on the situation, though. We do have some time to make final decision, so going with the flow for now :smile:

55

Plus she will be 18 by the time it matters (junior - senior year) – my youngest went at 17, to direct entry nursing. She isn’t exceedingly smart (not dumb of course but not skip two grades smart) but she is the youngest of 5 and was quite ready to spread her wings.

She seems to be at least as mature, capable and ready as the others – she is a junior now and doing very well.

1 Like
56

As someone who attended school 3hrs away at 16, I do not recommend it for everyone. There was no support at my school and the social aspect took over.

With that being said, there are lots of students who may be ready for college at an early age. I would highly suggest somewhere close where you can keep tabs on them.

It is very easy to get caught up in “bad college behaviors.” Peer pressure is a tough thing for a 16 year old, especially when their dormmates are 18-22. My roommate would wake up and say, “I’m not going to class today, how about you?” Most of you were thinking I was purely talking about drugs or alcohol, right? LOL

The irony is after graduating 2 years early, it took me 6 years to graduate college. I did begin my career at 18 and went part time, but it was not an easy time.

Good luck to all faced with this choice right now. Give them as much support as you can…even if they tell you they don’t need it!

1 Like
57

Mid year update. She turned 15 :slight_smile: It is more and more looking like she is going to college right after school, without gap year. She is not considering gap year and we are about 95% percent on board with it. Of course, there is always a curve ball of not getting into any schools or her changing her mind at the last minute:)

She got accepted to governor’s school for this summer, so it will be a great test run for her going away for a long period of time. We are not allowed to visit. I think she is already packing…

ACT came back 36, PSAT most likely will qualify her for at least NMSF. GPA 4.0 (for now, holding our breath she doesn’t decide on flip on us in the last semester).

We have a list of colleges that’s we finalised as far as we can, until August. All have either cyber security degree or comp sci with very strong research and minor in cyber security. Also, will be affordable to us, especially if we can get total payment per year to about $50k max, the lower the better of course:)

GTech reach
Purdue match
UofA Huntsville safety
UofMD College Park reach/match
UIUC reach/match
Northeastern reach
And MIT why not to apply :slight_smile:

If anyone can chime in regarding possibility of her getting into these (not MIT, we get it!!! :)) please feel free to comment

Since we are cautiously optimistic about her stats (and with the caveat that admission can be unpredictable) - is it even worth to mess with applications to Cornell or Columbia at all with her stats? She has very decent ECs to show her interest in STEM and Cyber, but not “I cured cancer and won International cyber competition” (I admire kids who did!!)

We applying to all schools EA, Cornell and Columbia will have to be RD. We visited most of the schools except Ivy so she is looking for a larger school with good access to bigger(ish) city and likes all of the once we identified.

58

What type of school does she want? I know the major, but what else is she looking for? I ask because she can get a solid education at almost any big school with a CS/Engineering department.

Also, she doesn’t need to cure cancer to get into top schools. IIRC someone built a nuclear reactor in their garage and was rejected by MIT. Look for the ones that are a good fit, and she will have a better chance of standing out.

Can you refresh my memory as to what her instate choice would be? (if there is one)

59

There were no schools she wanted to go to in-state. We visited a few.

She wants large school, city (or public transportation with easy access to the city).

She is very adamant she needs school with strong cyber program, research, classes, etc, since she wants to dive in into these classes as soon as she can. She will have about 10 AP courses. So hopefully can knock out some Gen Ed.

She is OK with all kinds of weather, but crossed off smaller Florida tech school, since it is too small (I loved that school:(()