<p>amother, congratulations to your son! Writing from experience here, it seems to me that the biggest problems your son will have is keeping engaged in his studies -- not being bored, but instead being continually challenged. Almost as big is to keep from being a "freak" in the eyes of his fellow-students and teachers -- just a learning machine with no personality or interests beyond this. </p>
<p>These two problems are related, however. My son was no athlete; he engaged in "recreational" sports but not competitive ones. He just did not have the motor skills. But he was (and is) highly "competitive," and he liked working on teams. And so he found a perfect solution for him, and that was the debate team. He got involved in debate, became a state champion but more important than that it was teamwork, very time consuming during the academic year and summers (debate camp) but this activity actually "saved" him from boredom with school. It gave him many other highly motivated and smart friends to "play with." And it kept him engaged in activities related to his school but not necessarily his courses. I think that without this activity, he would have become alienated from school.</p>
<p>There are related "competitive" activities at most schools. Also, areas such as journalism can be interesting and challenging.</p>
<p>We (his parents) had nothing to do with our son's decision to get so involved in debate. He was looking for an activity that was interesting and intellectually challenging, and he just fell into this after attending a meeting with the debate team during 9th grade. Neither he nor his parents saw this as a "way to get into college." Rather, it was for him a way to do and be good at something interesting, instead of, say, wasting time on computer games and being a "loner." In other words, it had a "socializing" effect, but of course it also gave him some skills and experiences that proved to be valuable later -- both in college and also after he graduated.</p>