Skip 7th grade?

[my_0.02]

<p>Our eldest son, young for his grade, was a middle school AIME/USAMO qualifier. For him, taking accelerated math and science classes in middle school without grade skipping worked well. Eventually, he ended up at an East Coast boarding school which had extensive math offerings beyond the usual high school sequence. Spending more time on algebra, number theory and geometry is of greater value than finishing BC calculus as a freshman. </p>

<p>BTW, “deceleration” can be achieved by repeating ninth grade at a boarding school after completing ninth grade locally.</p>

<p>The AOPS fora, books and classes will be great resources for you and your son.</p>

[amasroor]

<p>my two cents: </p>

<p>Had the same issue with my son. We did a mix of things: homeschooled for two years, using a complete curriculum of EPGY, CTY, CTD (Northwestern) and AoPS. Academically, it was a dream two years for him. We used to live close to Chicago then, so he was part of their saturday program, taking high level math courses with older kids, but his humor and immaturity made him stick out …in a bad way! He also took math and science classes at our local public high school. Now he is back in school, with his age group, and just as immature as everyone else. He will start with 2 AP’s next year, and will take Calc 1 at the university this summer. But math, science and Computer Science with the high school kids…given his immaturity I think this is something I can recommend to you if you can get it from your school. I wish you the best…</p>

[enfieldacademy]

<p>…qualified for AIME in SIXTH grade? ur kid has A LOT of potential to make an impact…</p>

<p>I would say skipping 7th grade is not necessary in any sense, and probably wouldn’t turn out to be a crucial decision in the long term. it’s not like 8th grade would be significantly more academically challenging, and if he’s happy socially now, then i don’t feel that it is urgent. </p>

<p>what does he want to do?</p>

<p>i hope he is encouraged to explore different fields by the way, given that chance… in my mind there is a bit of an unfortunate phenomenon of very bright kids being tracked into math competitions very early on, and going to college early, and essentially getting very comfortable doing math or physics, with all the positive feedback and success that comes with those things, and the unending challenge, without ever really being exposed in any depth to other possibilities, things they may have come across had they not been guided in the way that they were. None of that would be a problem, of course, except maybe a minor ethical concern in terms of how right it is to influence a child like that, if humanity didn’t face some serious challenges. But humanity does face serious challenges! and if we are to navigate them then it will be imperative kids like your son work on them.</p>

[justmytwocents]

<p>

I skipped 3 years and went it college at 15. My sister skipped four and also went to Simons Rock. I would say that it was one of the worst things for us. Yes, we could handle the school work and yes we were mature. But being mature does not mean you have the skill set to deal with college. I erroneously believed that being mature meant the I could handle college situations. Also, there is something to be said for learning to cope with being bored. As an adult, there is still boring work that has to be done. As an adult, I often struggle with the mundane. I still carry the notion that if a task is boring, I should not have to do it. That mentality is the largest obstacle I have in my life…

</p>

<p>I think there is something to be said for this post.</p>

<p>Not that I’m advocating your child should be bored in school - not at all - but I think this is an important point.</p>

<p>Back in the dark ages when I was in school my elementary and middle school principals strongly advocated several times over several years that I skip at least one, if not more, grades. I was already one of the youngest in my grade (and short!) and my parents were too concerned about the social consequences (all of my friends were “my” year - though I was socially adept - and at point it would have involved going from 4th grade at the elementary school to the 6th grade at the very “mature” middle school, where there were 15 year old 8th graders known for their fighting).</p>

<p>While I was quite bored, my teachers made an effort to create opportunities for me to not only challenge myself but also to shine with like-minded peers. </p>

<p>This was in the very early days of thinking about “gifted education” and it wasn’t commonplace in schooling. One teacher heard through a professional network about an experimental Saturday School / summer program for gifted elementary/middle school students that a university was starting up (incidentally, we all become research subjects in their multi-year research on intelligence, cognition, and gifted education, but that didn’t stop our parents from signing us up! In some ways it’s gratifying to know I contributed to the some of the earliest research on this important work). Another teacher gave me special assignments that went beyond what my peers were doing in class (I know this may be unrealistic today given the current burdens/strains on educators). I also went to academic enrichment residential programs.</p>

<p>The result was that I was able to really shine in high school. I came into my own and was able to take advantage of a wide variety of opportunities that I don’t think I would have been involved in/with had I been substantially younger than my peers (I was also terribly afraid of the older students when I was in HS - I thought the seniors were going to eat me as a freshman!).</p>

<p>I know anecdotes aren’t really that helpful - and there are apparently (based on this thread :D) oodles of 14-year-olds rockin’ their HS junior years out there, but I just thought I’d give you more food for thought.</p>

[latichever]

<p>When I went to public school in NYC, I was in the SP program (Special Progress). Back in the day when high school began with the 10th grade, this program grouped bright, but not necessarily genius kids, in a class that would do the three years of junior high (7, 8, and 9) in two years. So I wound up entering college at 16, just before my 17th birthday, like all the other kids in the city-wide program. In high school, we tended to make up most of the honor track, so we were different but not that much different than honors kids today, and we had our group for support. By the time we got to college we were used to dealing with older kids. The program has since been abandoned, but it shows that skipping on a city wide level can work.</p>

<p>Now, I have a son, who is the first kid in the history of his high school to be taking AP calculus in the 9th grade. We were never interested in him skipping a grade. I mean, if you’re reading on a high school level in the 4th grade, being in the 5th grade is not going to be much of a difference. Our main concern is that whichever grade he is in–and he has always been in the age appropriate one–he be challenged at his level of ability and achievement. His is particularly gifted in math, which became our focus. After some struggle with the school, they agreed with our plan to have him work independently in math at school, while the real instruction came from a tutor we were were fortunate enough to afford.</p>

<p>In our situation, I believe that a tutor provides advantages even over an elite private school. He is getting one to one instruction that can be catered to his particular interests and abilities. We live near a major university, and his two tutors up to know were a post-doc math fellow and a PhD engineer. He started with algebra in the sixth grade and finished pre-calculus in the 8th grade. Another advantage to a tutor is the mentoring from someone in a field he wants to enter.</p>

<p>If your child were a chess or violin prodigy, you wouldn’t have your kid skip a grade or go to a general private school. You would have a chess coach or a virtuoso instructor.</p>

<p>Incidentally, he has two older sibs who went through the high school, one of whom is a senior, so he knows many of the kids in his calculus class, and is socially adept. He’s also starting on the lacrosse team, and being over 6 feet, and taller than most of the seniors, doesn’t hurt in him fitting in.</p>

<p>We thought we were home free in high school, since there is an arrangement where students can take courses in the local university (an Ivy) tuition free. But they’re pretty strict about not letting that happen until junior year. So we’re back to the tutoring, now with a math PhD from the university who has been an instructor or assistant. Next year he will–in addition to several AP classes–be doing an independent study in math (the high school has a well developed independent study program)–so when he is a junior he will be able to start with elective level math courses at the university.</p>

<p>We may face the issue of him graduating early, but if may be able to be de facto taking mostly college courses while remaining in high school.</p>

<p>The bell curve works both ways. If he were intellectual challenged, they would be throwing services at him, but in our state the gifted have no right to special consideration. Fortunately, we were able to afford a tutor, which is much less expensive than private school tuition, but if you have no means at all, your options may be limited.</p>

<p>Overall all, though, having a tutor solves the problem of providing intellectual challenge while remaining in an appropriate social group.</p>

[Marian]

<p>

When I went to public school in NYC, I was in the SP program (Special Progress). Back in the day when high school began with the 10th grade, this program grouped bright, but not necessarily genius kids, in a class that would do the three years of junior high (7, 8, and 9) in two years. So I wound up entering college at 16, just before my 17th birthday, like all the other kids in the city-wide program.

</p>

<p>I was so glad that you people existed!</p>

<p>I skipped a grade in a suburban school system and was always something of a freak as a result. Then I got to Cornell in 1972, and I was surrounded by people exactly my age who had been in the NYC SP program. Suddenly I was normal! It was great.</p>

[bklyngal]

<p>I was also an SP kid, and skipped 7th grade. High school was fine, since so many of us had skipped, we made up a large portion of the honors core. I started college at 16, and graduated in 3 years, that was fine as well.graduate school at 19 took its toll on me. I simply did not have the maturity necessary. I was unable to go into a bar with my classmates in the evenings, since I was not “old” enough to drink. Socially and emotionally there was a huge difference between myself and my 23-24 year old classmates(many who took time off before grad school). When they recommended my son skip a grade, we declined. We supplement what he does w/ outside enrichment. I think w/ boys especially skipping is a bad choice in the long run. Most boys here are already 1 year younger than my son, because their parents chose to hold them back in Kindergarten… Not being able to drive until college, was not a big deal to me because i grew up in NYC. we no longer live in NY, not being able to drive until college where we live now, would create huge issues. SUpplement his school work, don’t skip him again.</p>

[intparent]

<p>I have a gifted D who attended Davidson’s THINK for two summers. She LOVED it… hugely challenging academically, and she made fabulous friendship with other highly gifted kids. You should definitely look into their summer program. Just FYI, they recently started to allow boarding (with other Davidson Institute families) to attend the high school at the Davidson Institute. My D decided not to go, did not want to leave home. But we did discuss it.</p>

<p>For my D, there is NOTHING worse than academic boredom, and nothing more exciting than an interesting, challenging academic class. I would not hesitate in your situation to skip your son. If the school is supportive, and he has good friends, he will likely be much happier. Feeding the “learning beast” is the top priority for my D; if it is for your son as well, he will work his way around the challenges others have identified. </p>

<p>By the way, I do not think “learning to be bored” is a skill that is useful in life… being bored more in middle and high school does NOT make you more willing to do boring tasks as an adult, IMHO (to the poster who says this is a big challenge for them… you would probably have exactly the same problem if you hadn’t gone to college early. I didn’t go early, had a lot of academic boredom, and still hate mundane tasks as an adult.)</p>

[my_0.02]

<p>Some of the boarding schools have math clubs with kids who live, breathe and sleep math. Good for some, not for all. </p>

<p>If being a small-to-medium sized fish in a big, competitive pond is more attractive than being a lonely big fish in a small pond, boarding schools with competitive math clubs might be the ticket. (Does your son dream of MC nationals, USAMO, or ARML? Compete in USAMTS? Spend hours on AoPS?)</p>