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[quote=Anonymous]College "pressure" -- not good, ever, but definitely not before sophomore year. College planning should start early though, IMO, and definitely by middle school.

I don't mean "planning" to get into a specific college, necessarily, unless it is honestly the child's dream for a logical reason, but in general having in mind the goal of eventually being admitted to a reputable university just makes sense when planning out classes and other decisions. Regardless of whether one attends an Ivy, a small liberal arts college, or any number of good state schools, there are still certain prerequisites that will have to be met in order to be admitted and be successful, so early planning is useful for that. Tracking for some classes starts in middle school, so it helps to have at least some idea of what classes one needs to take, and when, in order to reach the target class by senior year. If a kid hates, for example, foreign language, but you know they intend to go to college some day, I think the fact that most colleges prefer applicants with 3 years of language is good information to give them. This way, they see that there's an actual reason for them to take a class they don't like and genuinely try hard in it anyway -- because they know it will help them achieve a goal and it's not just some darn useless class mom and dad are making them take.

Actually, ignoring college for a second, a rising 8th grader would not be completely crazy to be considering the things you listed in your OP simply for the purposes of planning for [i] high school [/i] -- which will start in around a year and also has prerequisites. Example -- academic planning for high school should definitely happen by the 8th grade year, especially if a kid is particularly passionate about certain a subject, like math for instance (or any other subject this is just for illustration purposes). Show them the descriptions of some advanced math classes the high school has, and if they get excited about one of them, help them make a roadmap to meet the prerequisites by junior year so they can be sure to take the class in senior year. This definitely needs to be known by 8th grade so the kid can be on the track that will lead to this happening. As for the extra classes, if a kid has a particular class they know they want to take at some point but they're out of sequence and not going to have the prerequisites, I say good for them for figuring out how to make it work. Also, I would not be surprised if the kids who have started tracking their volunteer hours are doing so with an eye towards meeting the NHS service requirement or the volunteer requirement levied by extracurriculars or faith-based activities they may be involved in. Heck, depending on the school some rising 8th graders may be working towards a HS graduation requirement. So, it could easily be working towards some other goal that isn't directly tied up with the idea of college or with "college pressure".

I think there are sensible and reasonable ways to have one eye on the future (in an academic context, this would be college, trade school, etc) from a relatively early age and I don't think starting some of this planning just before 8th grade is inherently out of line. Not knowing the exact situation I can't say for sure that it's not a case of exactly what you posted -- inappropriate college pressure too soon-- but I can see scenarios in which it is not and is instead perfectly healthy and prudent.[/quote]

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