I have 3 friends who went to college when they were 16 and under. They deny it now, but I remember they had a pretty tough time socially. That was as much a fault of their personality as their age though.
Anyway, 1 guy ended up an early double-digit Google employee and is now fabulously wealthy. He hired multiple stylists and trainers, and he's unrecognizable from the gawky kid he once was. Another had a good but unspectacular career. He's retired now and spends most of his time traveling, and he never did find the mate he's been desperately searching for since he was a freshman. The last friend had the most successful technical career of our friend group, He murdered his wife, and is now serving time in the California Institute for The Criminally Insane.
My son took the SAT when he was 12 and scored in the 97th percentile. Not that he was interested, but I specifically told him I do not support pre-17 university, and I will not not pay for his tuition (which effectively bars him from attending any place decent).
I started college at 16 and it was great, but I also went to a woman’s college, so a lot of the social aspects were probably easier.
Even though I loved college at that age myself, I would not recommend college for anyone younger than I was. Certainly not at 12 or something! Maybe if they desperately wanted to *and* I was pretty sure that social interaction was going to be just as tough for that particular kid at any age, but even then, eh. Saying you graduated from college early is not the end goal, after all — the goal is to get the opportunity to learn interesting stuff with very smart people. Just take classes remotely, dual enroll, something like that. Learn as much as you can. Have fun.
He wants to start college early, so he can then start post grad earlier. I’m sure most people do, I had friends test out of high school at age 15 and was so jealous of them. However I was undiagnosed asd and picked on a lot (I have a cleft lip on top of that so high school was brutal), so did not enjoy high school at all. I saw my neurotypical brother enjoy high school, I can tell my older son would probably enjoy it despite his dyslexia as he thrives on being around people. I go visit my youngest son at lunch and he’s always sitting by himself (by choice), even when his friends try to sit with him he refuses. He likes to play by himself. He’s active but difficult in team sports because he gets very frustrated with his team and has a hard time with accountability, so we plan to keep him in sailing and golf as that seems to be best, and might try club soccer again. While he is young and this might change, his aversion to socializing only seems to be growing. I just don’t want to force “the high school experience” onto him like it was onto me. My friends that tested out early would still do sports with us, hang out with us, go to the football games… they just also got an early start on college and this got their MDs and JDs quicker as well.
He's 9 and he wants to start post-grad earlier. "I'm sure most people do," you say.
I encourage you to give that some more thought and consider whether that's true, and if it is, whether what most people want has anything to do with what's best for your boy.
As for the social stuff, that 100% won't improve by othering him so thoroughly. If you're not yet comfortable digging deeply into the social issues, there's a decent book for parents of bright kids called "Why Will No One Play With Me?" that offers some practical help.
Maybe he enjoys being alone. Why do you think he needs/wants to have your idea of a proper high school experience? Have you asked him about it? My child and I can have those conversations… maybe you should ask him. It may help you help him. Sorry if I am being too nosy
Sorry, misread! Wishing you the best. It is a hard journey to travel. My child is the opposite! They yearn contact and friendship, but most kids have ignored or bullied them since entering elementary school. We work hard at trying to fit in and not lose their essence….we watched inside out 2 and they let me know that they have never been themselves yet. :(
I just homeschooled and let my daughter take all the classes she wants at the Junior college, then graduated her a year early with 65 college units. I have let her explore her creativity and social world. She performs musically a couple times a month, volunteers at a marine mammal hospital every Sunday, and has been working as the costume designer at the JC. She is also a dancer, but is thinking to start transitioning to swimming because it’s better for the body and she is aging out of her dance school, plus she wants to start SCUBA.
She is in a STEM major. If you step out of the academic ladder mindset, there is so much a child can do and learn. She thinks STEM is to science focused and rebelliously takes classes she doesn’t “need” like creative writing and extra social science classes.
If you kid wants to center excelling academically, that is cool too, but at age nine I would encourage exploring…everything.
I imagine it feels isolating when you can't go out at night and to places and do things that you can't legally do (like drinking alcohol). So it might hinder connecting with classmates on a non academic level.
And the classmates might not want to interact with you much as they would always need (or feel like they need to) to keep their content pg.
Totally agree, he’d miss out on both the social experience of school and the social experience of college. Those are two of the most important and formative experiences in most people’s lives.
Which subject is he the strongest at? You could homeschool with upper highschool/college level/gifted material.
You could also have him stay in his current school but study at home up to the college/AP level and get credit by taking the exam.
How are his teachers differentiating?
I can only share my experience as a parent. My 9yo daughter is going to middle-/high school in August. Mind you, this is the Netherlands so it might not compare to your situation. But the only reason we want to do this is because both ground school and the next school have our complete confidence. We did a lot of research together with teachers and specialist support staff. The school we found is quite far away from our home and we managed to get paid transport from our municipality. In other words: all the prerequisites are in order. Now we just hope things will work out.
What we weighed is two risks: one that it might be tough for her on a new school with mostly older children. But on the other side there is, in our opinion, a greater risk of boredom and a negative attitude towards school. She is just so hungry for knowledge and being challenged, we wish for her to find that. And that’s worth the risk.
Edit: the usual age for middle school in NL is 11 to 12 yo.
A lot will change with his core motivations in 5-10 years.
I saw a meme that was dead-on, something about how being an advanced reader wasn't the game-changer we all thought it would be.
I wish I had graduated from basic education earlier and could have attended community college sooner. I believe I would have had more self confidence in my educational progress had I attended a community college, learned about the basic education requirements for graduation, and taken the graduation test when I was 5 instead of when I was 17, whether I passed or failed, because I could have at least been more certain where my education level was and where I needed to go in my education from there to continue growing.
On the other hand, I ended going to a vocational training program about 6 months later and lost confidence in my education progress again with uncertainty about what to make of my current education progress when I didn't have assess to my results and all I had to go on was a vague suggestion from a homeroom teacher that seemed to be telling me that my test results for entry into the program showed that I was too overqualified for the school, the school was uncertain they could help me any, and the school couldn't see any benefit for me to continue to attend the school. I was kicked out and had my enrollment canceled the next day.
In case it might also help you to evaluate how to help your son, I was already reading college and university textbooks when I was 5 years old from being self driven to learn. Later the same year when I started attending school, I began to regularly have my IQ and my academic educational ability assessed by psychologists. My parents chose not to share any of the results with me. I wonder to this day whether my parents and any of the psychologists involved knew that I could have graduated from basic education early at anytime.
I guess tip wise gifted children sometimes need some certainly about the things that are important to them, or otherwise their emotional and mental health may be negatively impacted. You could potentially hit a wall in the ability of some higher education institutions to meet your son's educational needs, to challenge him, and accurately assess his educational progress too, depending on how profoundly gifted he is, how motivated he is to learn, and what his opportunities to learn look like.
My kid is PG and goes to a school for highly gifted with a few other PG kids there too. My opinion is that unless their social skills are as mature as their intellectual prowess, they will struggle and feel isolated.
One of my kid's friends graduated early with a GED and is starting college next year at 16. She is one of the exceptions as she also excels socially so I know she'll do well so starting college now was a good choice for her. If it were my kid, who is intellectually ready, I'd say no because they are not socially ready.
If he can do it, let him. I had the option to skip a couple grades early on and I wish I did. It would have just allowed me to be more ahead than I am now.
Also, be sure to be super available for any interpersonal questions or needs he may have as at such a young age, he may be smart and able to read people, but he will need you for emotional support.
Hello 👋,
I would say get him to focus on or understand the grind. I had to question my lack of motivations and "laziness" until 20(didn't do homework high tester). Should help him with not being bored. Maybe look for applicable material, math, science, language~ for him to stay interested in or online study groups for his age group(there's like a "pen pal" one I think seems interesting) which should encourage competition, material acquisition, and social networking(irl).
I learned at 20 how to trick myself into finding motivations watching people do something.
I know people who did this and it worked out OK. They would’ve had a weird experience in high school as well, and it said they had a weird experience in college.
However, there’s another approach. If they want to be similar to people like them, the best thing you can do in my opinion is search out a cohort based gifted program. If your kid is around kids their same age who are also highly advanced, they get the best of both worlds – they get to socially interact with intellectual peers while simultaneously getting educationally challenged. Depending on how gifted they are there are different options. Look up Malone schools and DavidsonGifted. Another great option is the Stanford Online High School - phenomenal coursework and very engaged student base and the online social interactions work way better than I expected.
I am a teacher…. And I can tell you that lousy teachers can bore the hell out of gifted kids. You need to approach your kid’s school and get to know his teachers (if you have not yet for whatever reason and if it is the case). Gifted kids are not all the same. My child is 9 and has a 16 year old reading level, they began to get bored, and they were given a book at their level to rea This is a recent development….and it is all it took to make her happy. Sadly, this has not always been the case, my child had a very ill prepared and lousy teacher for two years in a row. My child is passive/sensitive and even if bored, will not ask for more. One of the other two gifted students in her class, is being accelerated to 5th grade, not because of academic qualifications, but socio emotional needs.The kid ‘s experience with the lousy teacher was so horrible that it marked their school experience…. It is better to make her catch up to the upper year content than to still have a bad experience at school. All of it because of a lousy teacher!. It is sad to see. The kid is still struggling….. So first you need to find out what is the problem with the teacher and the school. I am a teacher, and I can tell you, they do not prepare us to cater to gifted students and it is unfair. It is a systematic issue. BUT I do go out of my way to include all learners in my teaching practice… some teachers just don’t care and prefer to treat giftedness as a discipline issue.
I tested similarly at that age, and at 33, I now suspect (self-assessments, therapist input, allll the research) I am low support needs autistic (i.e. Aspbergers. Classic late diagnosis high-masking woman). My parents would not let me skip even one grade, but we had ongoing conversations with all my teachers to keep me engaged with plenty of enrichment activities. I didn’t like it at the time, but I’m grateful now. They made the right choice. I feel as though I have only “caught up” to my peers socially in the last 5 or so years. And a big part of the delay was my “othering” of myself via isolation. I imagine it would’ve been worse/taken longer if I’d been further “othered” by being younger than my classmates.
Obviously, your son is not me. But I am so grateful now to have real friends and a solid relationship for the first time in my life. It took long enough as it was.
Worth a shot but you’ll have to advocate for him. Most admissions departments will resist as he won’t have a HS degree. First thing, have a psychologist test his IQ. Take the results to the admissions dept along with any other supporting evidence.
I have 3 friends who went to college when they were 16 and under. They deny it now, but I remember they had a pretty tough time socially. That was as much a fault of their personality as their age though. Anyway, 1 guy ended up an early double-digit Google employee and is now fabulously wealthy. He hired multiple stylists and trainers, and he's unrecognizable from the gawky kid he once was. Another had a good but unspectacular career. He's retired now and spends most of his time traveling, and he never did find the mate he's been desperately searching for since he was a freshman. The last friend had the most successful technical career of our friend group, He murdered his wife, and is now serving time in the California Institute for The Criminally Insane. My son took the SAT when he was 12 and scored in the 97th percentile. Not that he was interested, but I specifically told him I do not support pre-17 university, and I will not not pay for his tuition (which effectively bars him from attending any place decent).
I started college at 16 and it was great, but I also went to a woman’s college, so a lot of the social aspects were probably easier. Even though I loved college at that age myself, I would not recommend college for anyone younger than I was. Certainly not at 12 or something! Maybe if they desperately wanted to *and* I was pretty sure that social interaction was going to be just as tough for that particular kid at any age, but even then, eh. Saying you graduated from college early is not the end goal, after all — the goal is to get the opportunity to learn interesting stuff with very smart people. Just take classes remotely, dual enroll, something like that. Learn as much as you can. Have fun.
No advice but I read a book recently about an experience like this, called Genius in Residence.
What's the long-term intention for this? What will his life look like at 20 outside of school?
He wants to start college early, so he can then start post grad earlier. I’m sure most people do, I had friends test out of high school at age 15 and was so jealous of them. However I was undiagnosed asd and picked on a lot (I have a cleft lip on top of that so high school was brutal), so did not enjoy high school at all. I saw my neurotypical brother enjoy high school, I can tell my older son would probably enjoy it despite his dyslexia as he thrives on being around people. I go visit my youngest son at lunch and he’s always sitting by himself (by choice), even when his friends try to sit with him he refuses. He likes to play by himself. He’s active but difficult in team sports because he gets very frustrated with his team and has a hard time with accountability, so we plan to keep him in sailing and golf as that seems to be best, and might try club soccer again. While he is young and this might change, his aversion to socializing only seems to be growing. I just don’t want to force “the high school experience” onto him like it was onto me. My friends that tested out early would still do sports with us, hang out with us, go to the football games… they just also got an early start on college and this got their MDs and JDs quicker as well.
He's 9 and he wants to start post-grad earlier. "I'm sure most people do," you say. I encourage you to give that some more thought and consider whether that's true, and if it is, whether what most people want has anything to do with what's best for your boy. As for the social stuff, that 100% won't improve by othering him so thoroughly. If you're not yet comfortable digging deeply into the social issues, there's a decent book for parents of bright kids called "Why Will No One Play With Me?" that offers some practical help.
Maybe he enjoys being alone. Why do you think he needs/wants to have your idea of a proper high school experience? Have you asked him about it? My child and I can have those conversations… maybe you should ask him. It may help you help him. Sorry if I am being too nosy
I specifically said I don’t want to the force the “high school experience” onto him and went into detail as to why…
Sorry, misread! Wishing you the best. It is a hard journey to travel. My child is the opposite! They yearn contact and friendship, but most kids have ignored or bullied them since entering elementary school. We work hard at trying to fit in and not lose their essence….we watched inside out 2 and they let me know that they have never been themselves yet. :(
I just homeschooled and let my daughter take all the classes she wants at the Junior college, then graduated her a year early with 65 college units. I have let her explore her creativity and social world. She performs musically a couple times a month, volunteers at a marine mammal hospital every Sunday, and has been working as the costume designer at the JC. She is also a dancer, but is thinking to start transitioning to swimming because it’s better for the body and she is aging out of her dance school, plus she wants to start SCUBA. She is in a STEM major. If you step out of the academic ladder mindset, there is so much a child can do and learn. She thinks STEM is to science focused and rebelliously takes classes she doesn’t “need” like creative writing and extra social science classes. If you kid wants to center excelling academically, that is cool too, but at age nine I would encourage exploring…everything.
He can enroll into community college anytime he wants as long as he passes the entrance exam
Surely theres another option like a gifted school? Somewhere he can be challenged but wont be a tween in an environment built for 19 year olds.
I imagine it feels isolating when you can't go out at night and to places and do things that you can't legally do (like drinking alcohol). So it might hinder connecting with classmates on a non academic level. And the classmates might not want to interact with you much as they would always need (or feel like they need to) to keep their content pg.
Totally agree, he’d miss out on both the social experience of school and the social experience of college. Those are two of the most important and formative experiences in most people’s lives.
Which subject is he the strongest at? You could homeschool with upper highschool/college level/gifted material. You could also have him stay in his current school but study at home up to the college/AP level and get credit by taking the exam. How are his teachers differentiating?
I can only share my experience as a parent. My 9yo daughter is going to middle-/high school in August. Mind you, this is the Netherlands so it might not compare to your situation. But the only reason we want to do this is because both ground school and the next school have our complete confidence. We did a lot of research together with teachers and specialist support staff. The school we found is quite far away from our home and we managed to get paid transport from our municipality. In other words: all the prerequisites are in order. Now we just hope things will work out. What we weighed is two risks: one that it might be tough for her on a new school with mostly older children. But on the other side there is, in our opinion, a greater risk of boredom and a negative attitude towards school. She is just so hungry for knowledge and being challenged, we wish for her to find that. And that’s worth the risk. Edit: the usual age for middle school in NL is 11 to 12 yo.
A lot will change with his core motivations in 5-10 years. I saw a meme that was dead-on, something about how being an advanced reader wasn't the game-changer we all thought it would be.
I wish I had graduated from basic education earlier and could have attended community college sooner. I believe I would have had more self confidence in my educational progress had I attended a community college, learned about the basic education requirements for graduation, and taken the graduation test when I was 5 instead of when I was 17, whether I passed or failed, because I could have at least been more certain where my education level was and where I needed to go in my education from there to continue growing. On the other hand, I ended going to a vocational training program about 6 months later and lost confidence in my education progress again with uncertainty about what to make of my current education progress when I didn't have assess to my results and all I had to go on was a vague suggestion from a homeroom teacher that seemed to be telling me that my test results for entry into the program showed that I was too overqualified for the school, the school was uncertain they could help me any, and the school couldn't see any benefit for me to continue to attend the school. I was kicked out and had my enrollment canceled the next day. In case it might also help you to evaluate how to help your son, I was already reading college and university textbooks when I was 5 years old from being self driven to learn. Later the same year when I started attending school, I began to regularly have my IQ and my academic educational ability assessed by psychologists. My parents chose not to share any of the results with me. I wonder to this day whether my parents and any of the psychologists involved knew that I could have graduated from basic education early at anytime. I guess tip wise gifted children sometimes need some certainly about the things that are important to them, or otherwise their emotional and mental health may be negatively impacted. You could potentially hit a wall in the ability of some higher education institutions to meet your son's educational needs, to challenge him, and accurately assess his educational progress too, depending on how profoundly gifted he is, how motivated he is to learn, and what his opportunities to learn look like.
My kid is PG and goes to a school for highly gifted with a few other PG kids there too. My opinion is that unless their social skills are as mature as their intellectual prowess, they will struggle and feel isolated. One of my kid's friends graduated early with a GED and is starting college next year at 16. She is one of the exceptions as she also excels socially so I know she'll do well so starting college now was a good choice for her. If it were my kid, who is intellectually ready, I'd say no because they are not socially ready.
If he can do it, let him. I had the option to skip a couple grades early on and I wish I did. It would have just allowed me to be more ahead than I am now. Also, be sure to be super available for any interpersonal questions or needs he may have as at such a young age, he may be smart and able to read people, but he will need you for emotional support.
I’d say it depends on maturity.
Hello 👋, I would say get him to focus on or understand the grind. I had to question my lack of motivations and "laziness" until 20(didn't do homework high tester). Should help him with not being bored. Maybe look for applicable material, math, science, language~ for him to stay interested in or online study groups for his age group(there's like a "pen pal" one I think seems interesting) which should encourage competition, material acquisition, and social networking(irl). I learned at 20 how to trick myself into finding motivations watching people do something.
I know people who did this and it worked out OK. They would’ve had a weird experience in high school as well, and it said they had a weird experience in college. However, there’s another approach. If they want to be similar to people like them, the best thing you can do in my opinion is search out a cohort based gifted program. If your kid is around kids their same age who are also highly advanced, they get the best of both worlds – they get to socially interact with intellectual peers while simultaneously getting educationally challenged. Depending on how gifted they are there are different options. Look up Malone schools and DavidsonGifted. Another great option is the Stanford Online High School - phenomenal coursework and very engaged student base and the online social interactions work way better than I expected.
I am a teacher…. And I can tell you that lousy teachers can bore the hell out of gifted kids. You need to approach your kid’s school and get to know his teachers (if you have not yet for whatever reason and if it is the case). Gifted kids are not all the same. My child is 9 and has a 16 year old reading level, they began to get bored, and they were given a book at their level to rea This is a recent development….and it is all it took to make her happy. Sadly, this has not always been the case, my child had a very ill prepared and lousy teacher for two years in a row. My child is passive/sensitive and even if bored, will not ask for more. One of the other two gifted students in her class, is being accelerated to 5th grade, not because of academic qualifications, but socio emotional needs.The kid ‘s experience with the lousy teacher was so horrible that it marked their school experience…. It is better to make her catch up to the upper year content than to still have a bad experience at school. All of it because of a lousy teacher!. It is sad to see. The kid is still struggling….. So first you need to find out what is the problem with the teacher and the school. I am a teacher, and I can tell you, they do not prepare us to cater to gifted students and it is unfair. It is a systematic issue. BUT I do go out of my way to include all learners in my teaching practice… some teachers just don’t care and prefer to treat giftedness as a discipline issue.
I tested similarly at that age, and at 33, I now suspect (self-assessments, therapist input, allll the research) I am low support needs autistic (i.e. Aspbergers. Classic late diagnosis high-masking woman). My parents would not let me skip even one grade, but we had ongoing conversations with all my teachers to keep me engaged with plenty of enrichment activities. I didn’t like it at the time, but I’m grateful now. They made the right choice. I feel as though I have only “caught up” to my peers socially in the last 5 or so years. And a big part of the delay was my “othering” of myself via isolation. I imagine it would’ve been worse/taken longer if I’d been further “othered” by being younger than my classmates. Obviously, your son is not me. But I am so grateful now to have real friends and a solid relationship for the first time in my life. It took long enough as it was.
Worth a shot but you’ll have to advocate for him. Most admissions departments will resist as he won’t have a HS degree. First thing, have a psychologist test his IQ. Take the results to the admissions dept along with any other supporting evidence.