Thanks. I realise I need to start looking more actively soon. Oldest is in grade 4 now and thinks I am going to home school her for high school. That’s her plan. She has figured out she can be done with school earlier if I do. :biggrin: she loves learning so I think she is looking for more freedom in what she learns. Yes zoning is important in some areas but there are ways around it if you start early and have the grades to support the schools reputation :biggrin:
I think I might just ring a few universities directly and ask them what the options are and whether we can do external studies as an early entrant.
Also check out open university. They have some great programs external. If she finishes high school earlier she might have that option while still living at home.
Good luck, Manda. Would be interesting to hear what the universities said.
Your daughter may be on to something. Reading and writing is about practice. Also, hypothetically speaking, if your daughter is in 4th grade, she could advance her math up to college level in about a little over a year (something mentioned in Mrs.Harding’s book). For example, with Saxon Math a year of math is put together in 120 lessons (except for Calculus and Trig). The Hardings did two lessons a day. A year of math done in 60 days. So your daughter could do Saxon Math 6/5 (fifth grade), 7/6, 8/7, Algebra 1, Algebra 2, Geometry, Calc & Trig, and throw in some Adv. Math at the end… 60 x 7 + 84 (for Calculus), that’s 504 days, about a year and four months. Hard work, but not impossible, especially if she loves learning.
Edit: Meant to say Swann’s book not Harding
Lol I reckon she might kill me for even suggesting she does 2 Saxons a day! One a day is definately our maximum at the moment. :yes: But to get there even faster 
you don’t need to do all 120 lessons. At least 30 in each book are revision so we can safely skip those. Also the 8/7 book is redundant unless your kids are struggling skip that one too. I have it and I think she could manage it easily now with only a few stumbles. If I was looking solely to acceleration I would jump strait to 8/7 now! We could easily do one lesson a day for 7 days a week if we were home schooling. And could be through them all in well under 3 years which would put her at graduating high school before she actually starts high school! As it is now I am slowing her down because we don’t have a plan to follow beyond grade 7. That’s why I need to go looking at higher education options…to stop me from putting brakes on her for no good reason. I do want her to get an education full of depth and interest but not at the expense of years of wasted classroom time. She has many interests and does enjoy reading and studying new things.
I shall shoot an email off to the open university and see what they say :biggrin: if nothing else their response will tell me how open they are to the whole idea of early entry.
So all this discussion and links about skipping high school and using Open University has got me thinking. It appears this is the route I will take. Thank you TmT for that link and thanks to everyone for an interesting discussion. I’ve been checking out the UK Open University Website - http://www.open.ac.uk/choose/change/.
Korrale, you have some experiences with using the Australia Open University. Could you share some experiences as it relates to this discussion? You once mentioned that their degrees are rigorous, even more so than those of brick and mortar schools. That was very encouraging to hear. So now, our tentative plan is to accelerate the children, then skip high school completely and use the Open University. So the child will have a bachelors from Open University, and if there is need, he may later be enrolled in an Ivy brick and mortar school for another bachelors if he so wishes. That way, he’ll get necessary academic experience from Open University, and later more from an Ivy brick and mortar school. If there will be no need for a 2nd bachelors, he can proceed straight to postgraduate study.
What do you think of this? How about labs for children going into University Science courses? Will the child, by not having high school labs, miss out on important stuff? This is so new to me, and I would be grateful for any help or advice you can offer. By the way, I’ve been reading some testimonials on the UK open university here - http://www.open.ac.uk/choose/change/is-the-ou-for-me. The testimonial of Gavin Harper got me curious.
About Open University.
There are many advantages.
The cost is reasonable.
It is reading heavy.
They have discussions online via a forum system.
You can accelerate a degree by taking more courses at a time.
You can also take one course at a time.
Disadvantages.
It is all online, or book based.
I never took a class with a video. They do have lectures on CD.
There is a lot of reading and research. Many people struggle with this. You HAVE to be self motivated and understand the course work.
You may want access to a decent library. But you don’t NEED it.
Externally the courses are limited to liberate arts, humanities based subjects mostly. You have to do science where they have access to their internal labs. Eduction is the same. You need to be in the right state to do practicals.
Now, as is common with Australian degrees… There are no general education requirements. To get a BA in history or English in the US you have to meet a certain number of credits in math, science, foreign language and more. But in Australia if you want a history degree you just have to take courses that are directly related to history. Some people love the last of general education. Others think we need that general education to round us out as students.
The above reason is why American BAs are 4 years and Australian BAs are 3 years on average.
I wonder how they do it?
If they started around age 4, they didn’t enjoy this window of time when everything was easily learned. How ca you accelerate a kid that much?
Interesting article
Very easy if you homeschool rather than use Public and most private schools.
The US public school year is only 180 days. I know if is more in Australia.
360 teaching hours a year for Kindergarten
720 teaching hours a year from 1st to 4th grade
1080 teaching hours a year from 5th to 12th grade.
So…
10800 teaching hours from K-12.
Now… Take an accelerated homeschooling schedule.
5 days a week 50 weeks a year is about 250 days of schooling a year.
4-6 hours homeschooling a day would be about 1000-1500 hours a year.
So it would only take about 7-10 years to achieve the same teaching hours.
So if the kids started at 4 they could have completed 13 years of schooling hours equivalent to the public school system between the ages of 11-14.
Now… If you take into account the amount of group, busy work, games, review ans sillyness, that the public school system does. The time could be done even faster. Or with less schooling hours a year.
But… At some points children may not be mature enough to be learning certain content. So homeschooling may need to slow for a while.
But in either case I do believe it can be done even without early learning.
Now if one is to send their child to public or even private school they can still accelerate, by after schooling and by keeping academics going during summer break.
A little off topic but this is free NOW so go get it 
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00BOB0ZRW/?tag=ereaderpcom-20
It’s a little book about homeschooling and allowing children to follow their passions and how to turn them into university degrees. I haven’t read it yet but I think it will add lovely warm thoughts to your plans lol
So now to accelerating… Yes it is easy to accelerate with home schooling. And perhaps it is possible to accelerate while after schooling but damn its hard work! Eventually you will need to either successfully manipulate the school system ( which appears to only be possible IN high school) or leave the school system. You can however use the school system for the first few ( up to grade 6 potentially) years while after schooling until you get to a point that you know you can’t go beyond without serious changes at school.
I have some ideas about how to do external studies in science and the like. In science degrees where a lab is required they often do blocks for lab work for external students. So the majority of the course is external and you go to the university for practicals. Usually one or two weeks strait. Most ambulance drivers learn their med stuff doing this while working as a trainee driver. This could work for our kids.
Education degrees are available externally. The practical placement you have to arrange yourself but it is easily done externally. I recommend that any teaching degrees your children do are done as POST GRAD studies as postgrad education degrees are only one year on top of another completed degree. ( In australia, but the workload is HEAVY!) Thus in 4 years kids get 2 degrees. This is the path we are considering for my second child, who will likely become a teacher in early childhood art. ( going by her passions in life)
For the library you just need a university nearby. Any uni will do. All university libraries will let you in to look at books on site. Rad and scan to your hearts content. Most for a fee ($200 odd annually) will sell you a public access library card to take books home. You could also enrol, get a card and pull out before the payment date but I don’t recommend that path.
Not having access to science lab stuff in high school will not be a disadvantage to further education. The lab work in high school is easily replicated at home and if your child is seeking a science degree most likely you will already have bought them all the test tubes, microscopes and Bunsen burners you could find for their birthdays years prior!
I have been thinking on this topic a bit and I have come to the conclusion there is only benefit in skipping high school IF your child has already discovered their passion in life. If they haven’t then accelerating them into a degree is probably pointless. The time could be better spent exploring options and looking for a life passion to study. If your kid isn’t sure what they want to study then don’t push them into a degree early. I know ( here in Australia anyway) It is easy to basically make up your own degree. Basically you enroll in either a business based or arts based degree and select elective units from the areas you want to specialise in to create a degree that makes you qualified in you chosen area at the end. For example I have a degree in business but selected units based around tourism, hospitality, and restaurant management and thus came out with a business degree majoring in tourism and hospitality management. I could do this only because I knew what area I wanted to specialise in. If my kids didn’t know what they wanted to do when they grow up then I could consider a business degree and let them chose electives they are interested in. This could turn out to be a waste of money though so this is a path for scholarship kids :biggrin: it is a good option though if your kids are that far ahead of their peers that they have run out of thing to study at a high enough level. :yes:
I spent too much time today looking into early education pathways to university. :unsure: but hey I have found a number of solutions to skipping high school
Open universities has a number ( quite a few actually) units that can be studied with NO pre-requisites. ( that means it doesn’t matter what you have done before they will let you have a go at them!) on almost all their other courses the successful completion of any 4 units through open universities is proof enough you can do the work and thus can enroll in most other degrees. What does this mean for our kids? Well they can spend 6 months doing for units in the undergraduate program unit choices that have no pre-requisites, make sure they get good grades in them and then change their enrolment into the degree of their choice. I will add a few of these units actually look to be good fun and a great way to spend 6 months! ( most of them seem to be in the arts degree section)
Open universities will accept children under 16. In fact a number of their literacy course require parental permission for minors due to the adult content in them! So clearly kids have been here before us! 
An alternative is to enrol in a diploma of some sort. The first 8-12 units in a diploma are often the same as the first 8-12 units in the degree of the same name. Open university makes it easy to get a diploma qualification and then add in the rest of the units to complete the degree with the passing units under your kids belt. I did note for some degrees a pass will count but for others ( probably the ones we will be looking at) need to pass with a GPA of at least 4. I don’t think our kids will find getting 4 all that difficult in most of the units on offer ass beginning points.
There are short courses in academic writing, bridging math, physics and chemistry to get kids the skills they need to pass university in general. We will definitely sign up for at least the academic writing one.
Now I got the kids school newsletter a couple of days ago and after all this research I realised there are 11 kids at their school ( out of probably less than 60 seniors) doing the external advanced math courses offered through open learning and Griffith university. Freeky! :ohmy: so all I have to do if I don’t want to home school is just tweak the school into considering letting my kids do them earlier than year 11. You know…push it uphill! lol
Well anyway after all this CLEARLY it is entirely possible to enrol kids much younger than 17! Woohoo! I don’t think the age on the enrolment form would even be considered in many of the units. Waiting for an email confirmation anyway. Best to be sure
HI Manda
I am interested to know how old your kids are? I know you said they are in fourth grade but not sure their age. My son is in 4th grade and is 7. I did a purely Doman style EL until he was about 5. Through much searching we have found a hybrid Christian homeschool that allows the child to move into their skillset appropriate grade, as opposed to age focus. So for example, DS’s class age ranges from him, 7-12. It works on an academic basis but the social overtones are stressful. This has lead me to question the grand plan of sending him to college at this rate, at 12. Do I want him in classes where he will be learning about abortion for example and hanging out with kids that could be taking drugs. Okay, worst case scenario but still, it brings a lot of questions to mind. I am 100% behind your plan from an academic standpoint but if this small Christian school of no more than 100 kids is stressful in elementary school, how are we going to cope in a tertiary education institution? I put this question especially to the moms that have already lived through it. Sorry, didn’t want to throw a downer on this thread but really am looking for some practical application. I have read Karl Whit, the Swanns etc. but these subjects are hardly dealt with.
Best Regards
Mandy
I believe fhe options that Manda is looking at now is Open University which is done externally. Unless in the case of some classes a student never needs to set foot on a campus.
Australian universities are different in my eye than American colleges. If that was a comparison.
Most kids start there at 17. And there isn’t the social aspect that there is in the US. Nearly every kid just went to class, did their work then went home. There was little time to no time to discuss drugs amongst their peers.
However some of the classes might be covering more mature topics. Sex being one of them. Granted, this was my experience over a decade ago. If university has the same atmosphere I would have no qualms sending my 14 year old onto campus for classes.
I would be extremely wary about sending my 14 year old onto an American college campus, especially one with Greek life and under age parties.
But I think that community college I would be okay with because they are more akin to an Australian university. My local community college is also made up of a higher percentage of older adults returning to education. There are very few younger adults. My husband was in his mid-late 20s and was young in many of his classes.
I would be extremely wary about sending my 14 year old onto an American college campus, especially one with Greek life and under age parties.
That’s really only an after-hour diversion. If someone is attending a Big U at the age of 14 or younger, they are not likely to be engaged in those activities in pretty much any form unless they’ve been emancipated. Odds of being emancipated AND qualifying for Big U at an age like that are effectively zero. The only other way this could happen is if said family lives in the Big U neighborhood - and if this is the case, the risk is the same whether or not the child is attending classes I’d guess.
My oldest is 9 then I have a 7 and 5 year old. They are in a private Christian school in their normal age class level. It is a conservative school behaviour wise. I am a protective mum who opted for private school to avoid the social issues in public school and to hopefully get a better quality of education. So far it is working but it isn’t a long term solution. My kids love school ( really look forward to Mondays!) so I am in no rush to home school them but don’t want them to continue at that school right through to grade 12. Two reasons firstly it would be a waste of their time academically and secondly the kids are far too sheltered and come out completely clueless as to what goes on in the real world. I know that is an unusual thing for an overprotective mum like me to say :biggrin: but kids do need a measured dose of reality before they hit the big wide world.
Australian universities are VERY sedate compared to the US ones ( haven’t changed much in the last 10 ears) but I still wouldn’t send a 14 year old to on campus classes unless I was able to account for their time before and after class. I can accept that most degrees will have adult content in them ( and they do, even my teaching degree did!) but would prefer my children addressed those issues at home with me around for support and guidance. This is why I am currently only considering external studies for my children until they are 16. If their chosen degrees have units that need to be done on campus then I will allow that but depending on the class I may act as a chaperone or I might have them do those units last.
Although right now I am sheltering them as much as possible from the world ( my kids are clueless to all those sex and violence topics) if they are going to graduate early, I accept that they will need to be mature enough to cope in the real world. I just see no reason to introduce it before necessary
Chatting to dad today, he loved the idea of graduating my kids early and skipping high school, but suggested doing it part time and giving the kids a chance at developing a career from age 15. His thinking being that my kids are far to social to be 100 % home schooled. I figured that was a good idea for the first 2 kids as they both have a strong career interest already, one that can start from as early as they are aloud to work.
Mandy I don’t think abortion and drugs are worst case scenario. The reality is they are the reality. Protect your son as long as you need to. Look for external studies that are not on campus. There are some great math and science degrees around that can keep him busy at home and there are plenty of options for education that is catered to his interests. Also while he is under 18 and studying you may get some fee breaks from the government or even a scholarship to ease the expense. ( although I was pleased to see the cost of open university courses arnt much more than most private schools anyway )
Mandy We assumed you are in the US, hope we were correct?
Well done! At home you can eliminate waste and focus on the essentials of learning. I think this family should be used as a model for public education to observe what can be done when you do it right.
Wow, I didn’t realize that there were additional posts to this thread.
@TeachingMyToddlers: Thanks so much for posting the link to the chapman’s! Perfect
@Jenene: I think she got the basics taken care of and then, yes, through college the children specialized. Remember, though, that the gen ed requirements in college are basically just a repeat of high school, and with accelerated/gifted children, repetition can be quite frustrating and unnecessary. Even still, learning doesn’t quit just because someone gets a degree. An important thing is to learn how to learn, and I think her kids got that, as well as a broad general education. Not only that, even in the US, the array of education opportunities is sooooo large for high schoolers. There are public schools, private schools, charter schools, prep schools, vocational schools, STEM schools, business/entrepreneurial schools, home schools, … .
@Omnipedia: there are several famous accelerated children who get into stanford, yale, harvard, and more … and this is a practice that has been going on for a very, very long time. The most recent that comes to mind, though, is David Dalrymple who attended MIT graduate school by age 14. I just started chatting with his mom, so I’ll let you guys know how that goes. But no, I don’t believe that acceleration means that you don’t get into ‘brand name’ schools. Even still, so far as I can tell, most people care that you got a degree and not so much where you got it from. I think the days of networking due to your alma mater are paving way to the days of proving what you’ve got. And if you’re young enough to get your degree through acceleration, then that means you have that many more years to add experience under your belt to prove your qualifications, career-wise. Plenty of doctors, judges, lawyers, and other professionals are still all of those things without attending top schools. Yes, there may be more obstacles to overcome by doing it young, but you’re still that much more ahead of the pack. Worst case scenario, you just have to wait around and experience life (volunteer, join the peace corps, get a teaching degree and travel teaching english in other countries) while your age catches you up to qualify for something. Still, I believe that where there’s a will, there’s a way; and as more children are accelerated, more opportunities will become available. I think you nailed it, though, when you said that you guys have to figure out what your son wants to do. Best of luck with your choices And PS - I love this community too!
@Anyone: RE Online courses … I’ve been thinking about this a lot for my kids, having had experience with many online courses myself. The conclusion for me is that in order to give them a solid education, they can do online to get the credit, but I would still have to fill it in for them. There’s just so much that is missed by not having a person actually interacting live and in person. That said, some classes did a wonderful job, but many of my online classes I did well in because of my past experiences, having learned it in school. I can’t imagine having done well, or even having learned the material properly online (for many, but not all of the classes), if it had been my first exposure to the material.
@Mandabplus3: Thanks for that link. I’m looking forward to your thoughts on it after you read it. Also, congrats on looking into accelerated learning; I can’t wait to find out how all of that goes for you and the family!
@PokerDad: so agree lol the thought of an emancipated early learner seems quite impossible … unless someone else were helping that child out … but still, then they’d be guiding them, still, through the college years.
I’m excited to see you all thinking about acceleration now. I think that for so many children it really is the way to go, but that we’re so inculcated by the current pattern of education that it makes it hard for many parents to make it happen with the current resources available, let alone think outside the box to try and make it a reality.