Reply to Is there such a thing as too much acceleration?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I was talking with a friend who also has a kid in 9th. DS is taking Calc AB and her kid is in Geometry. She said that too much acceleration is a bad thing, and that we should be careful because it can make kids seem like overachievers and/or gunners. At first I thought it's just jealousy and that she is mad my kid is so advanced, but then I thought there may be some truth to what she is saying. It seems these days, colleges aren't looking for excellence so much as quirkiness and that kids who do well in subjects like math, aren't valued at all. It doesn't help that we're Asian. Anyway. I'm wondering what other people think.

PS. My younger child is in 7th and is not on an accelerated track. Both kids are happy and love school.[/quote]

Too much acceleration?  Depends on the kid and what they want to do.
As long as they are getting A's it's not going to hurt them but it's not clear how much it will help them either.
Once you can check the box for high rigor.  I think you can probably do this by taking AP calculus in high school, your friend's kid is on track for this their senior year.  However, it would be nice to have it done by junior year so it is in your transcript, so I would try to be on track to take calculus by junior year.
But after that, colleges don't really see linear algebra or multivariable much differently than APUSH or other rigorous AP classes.

If you want to lean into the math in a way that colleges care about, then I think the baseline is qualifying for AIME.
There are like 3000 kids that are qualify to take that test so it's very nice but it's not a very high bar.
From there you want to qualify for the USAMO
That's like 500 kids and that is a small enough number that it can get you into a very selective school if you have otherwise great stats and ECs.
From there you want to qualify for the math olympiad summer program at carnegie mellon
That's like 100 kids and this will usually get you into pretty much any school you want.
After that you are in very rare company and you can write your own ticket.[/quote]

Your numbers are off by 2X (250 make it to USAMO and 50-60 make it to MOP (Olympiad summer program). But the overall point is correct. This does make the kid "unique" or at least one of a select few. But I think OP said that her kid wasn't that interested in competition math. In any case, as long as the kid is doing well, has avenues to take challenging and advanced math courses or even basic linear algebra, it can't be a drawback. For those suggesting that somehow acceleration will diminish development in other subjects, the kid has to take some math course if not accelerated in any case. So how does taking, say MVC/Linear Algebra not leave room for APLANG/AP Lit/APUSH etc on their schedule.[/quote]

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