Considering sending my high school junior to college online ASAP

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Has anyone done this? Considering this?

My kid is so bored in high school, and now that most colleges are online, I figure she could go to college for a year online, possibly starting in January (why not?).

My kid is too young to leave home, but her brain is ready for college. She went to CTY summer camp for three summers and was extremely happy taking college level classes there.
She's so miserable with online high school classes, which are mostly busy work, no substance.

She took community college classes this summer when her job was cancelled, but the classes were too easy for her.

Is this a crazy idea? What colleges might we look at? She took her SATs in 8th grade and did well enough to get into a top-tier college.

So you want to ruin your child's high school experience and ruin her college experience too? She is likely too young to compete (even if very smart) with other students who will be many years older. She will also limit her time spent on campus developing relationships with professors/mentors and other kids. Having taught high school for more than ten years, there are very few kids, even if very smart, that can't use more time to develop and polish writing and analytical skills. In addition, no top-tier college will take your child off-cycle to begin in January.

If you must pursue this for some reason, declare yourself a homeschooler, and then issue her a diploma and transcript. Note that you must be able to show that she has achieved the necessary number of classes to represent a high school education.

Instead, I would declare my child a homeschooler, which still allows her to take a couple of college classes, but pursue an internship or very specialized study of a topic that is interesting to her, and continue to have her be a high school student. This will help you with college admissions (just don't take too many college credits or you will lose access to freshman scholarships, etc. and she will be considered a transfer admit.)

[Anonymous]

Op where does your daughter go to school? The problem is that if she’s truly as talented as you say she is, she is going to get into a better college applying as a senior then she will trying to take classes online this year. I think it would be better to focus on getting her Into challenging high school classes and apply for college at the regular time.

[Anonymous]

Something extra to consider, for what it’s worth. If your kid might someday go to law (or possibly med) school, be very careful about these sorts of classes. They will be counted in your GPA when applying and can screw your over—happened to two friends of mine who took and blew off CC classes in high school, it tanked their “LSAC gpa” and they were not able to get into law schools with going to even with good college grades and a good LSAT score. Of course, this really just counsels in favor of taking a course in which your kid can succeed and making sure they get an A if there’s a chance they might want to be a lawyer (or possibly doctor, again not sure about that).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Something extra to consider, for what it’s worth. If your kid might someday go to law (or possibly med) school, be very careful about these sorts of classes. They will be counted in your GPA when applying and can screw your over—happened to two friends of mine who took and blew off CC classes in high school, it tanked their “LSAC gpa” and they were not able to get into law schools with going to even with good college grades and a good LSAT score. Of course, this really just counsels in favor of taking a course in which your kid can succeed and making sure they get an A if there’s a chance they might want to be a lawyer (or possibly doctor, again not sure about that).

screw you over*

schools worth going to*

Sigh.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I just looked into the GED. You have to be 18 or a high school dropout to take it. My kid is neither.

She would be considered a dropout.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I just looked into the GED. You have to be 18 or a high school dropout to take it. My kid is neither.

She would be considered a dropout.

first she has to drop out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:total troll SAT's in 8th grade ? if not a troll I feel really sorry for your child.

Go ahead and feel sorry for my kid. To get into CTY, you need to take the SAT. She took it in 8th grade.

[Anonymous]

Look into dual enrollment. My son took DE classes in high school. He is starting college as a sophomore.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Rather than focus on her taking college classes spring of her junior year, focus on taking all the classes she needs to graduate early, and then apply to college in spring for fall admittance (during what would’ve been her senior year.) Otherwise, just let her take the core high school credits and let the classes be easy, and supplement with other high interest courses from elsewhere. Don’t just randomly pursue “harder” classes right now. You need a concrete plan for HS graduation and college intention.

Have you discussed it with her HS counselor?

But does the DD herself want to graduate early? Not clear what she wants versus what parent wants. If the girl is on board with accelerating things, that's fine, but I'm wondering how much of this the parent is driving and how much is the DD herself.

Hi, OP here. My DD is bored, and yes, she'd like to take college courses. She loved CTY, which is taught at the college level with kids her own age. She hates high school, which she finds excruciatingly stupid and boring. She's not mature enough to go to college, but intellectually, she can manage college courses. She's taking 7 AP classes this year. She took 2 last year and got 5s on both tests. Her high school piles on the work in AP classes, but it's not interesting work. My older kid had the same issue at the same high school. Once my older DD got to college, she was really happy with the academics, which she loves. That's why I was hoping I could sign up DD for college courses, since most are online. She wants to go to HYPS, by the way, but I don't imagine those schools will allow her to take courses online, so I'm trying to figure out if there's are any reasonably challenging colleges that will allow her to take one or two interesting college classes online.
I have have gotten bureaucratic responses from a couple admissions offices I called, e.g. kid needs high school diploma or to have finished all requirements before enrolling online. DD has neither.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Rather than focus on her taking college classes spring of her junior year, focus on taking all the classes she needs to graduate early, and then apply to college in spring for fall admittance (during what would’ve been her senior year.) Otherwise, just let her take the core high school credits and let the classes be easy, and supplement with other high interest courses from elsewhere. Don’t just randomly pursue “harder” classes right now. You need a concrete plan for HS graduation and college intention.

Have you discussed it with her HS counselor?

But does the DD herself want to graduate early? Not clear what she wants versus what parent wants. If the girl is on board with accelerating things, that's fine, but I'm wondering how much of this the parent is driving and how much is the DD herself.

Hi, OP here. My DD is bored, and yes, she'd like to take college courses. She loved CTY, which is taught at the college level with kids her own age. She hates high school, which she finds excruciatingly stupid and boring. She's not mature enough to go to college, but intellectually, she can manage college courses. She's taking 7 AP classes this year. She took 2 last year and got 5s on both tests. Her high school piles on the work in AP classes, but it's not interesting work. My older kid had the same issue at the same high school. Once my older DD got to college, she was really happy with the academics, which she loves. That's why I was hoping I could sign up DD for college courses, since most are online. She wants to go to HYPS, by the way, but I don't imagine those schools will allow her to take courses online, so I'm trying to figure out if there's are any reasonably challenging colleges that will allow her to take one or two interesting college classes online.
I have have gotten bureaucratic responses from a couple admissions offices I called, e.g. kid needs high school diploma or to have finished all requirements before enrolling online. DD has neither.

You're not going to find a good traditional college that lets high school students take online college courses for credit (without some pre-existing program in place; e.g., Visitation and Gonzaga have a special program with Georgetown for high school seniors to take advanced math and language, but that's the exception, not the rule). However, you might consider something like the Harvard Extension School. You can sign up for "credit" classes if over the age of 15, although I wouldn't count on the credits actually counting toward a regular HYPS degree someday. Still, at least some of the extension school faculty are regular Harvard professors using their regular course material.

[Anonymous]

I think this is a great plan.

7 AP courses is awful; so much busy work for a standardized test, versus an actual college course where you learn through inquiry etc. And in regular college, 4 classes is a full load, nobody takes 7 college classes at a time! Honestly if she has to stay in high school, I would drop some of the AP classes and just take the tests at the end of the year.

So, to the naysayers—almost nobody has a high school diploma when they apply to college. What you have to do is show the colleges that your daughter is on track to graduate by December/next June. To do this, you will have to work with your high school to take the courses needed for a basic high school diploma. Probably English 12 and US Government are the big stumbling blocks.

If your daughter tells the high school she is thinking of dropping out, this may motivate them to come up with a plan for her to graduate. To get an English 12 credit, English 101 at the community college, US Government, Political Science 101, etc.

Alternately, there are some colleges that have early college programs. Look at smaller women’s colleges. For example, Mary Baldwin: https://marybaldwin.edu/early-college/