Curious about graduating early

My 16 year old is graduating early. It was mostly because of our state law. We went by required credits and hours. For instance, she took double credit hours for English and Science this year. We are in PA. They say 120 hours is a credit. Does that help clear things up a little.

My son graduated at 16 in 2010. Back when I cared more about what other people were learning and when, he was ready for “7th” grade level work after “5th” grade, so we had him “skip” which meant that I told the school he was in 7th grade that year. So he had all the years of high school; he just did them younger. He really was ready to graduate when he did, but I wouldn’t have my other kids do that. Just depends on the kid.

I’d say it was easier for us doing  that than if we had crammed in 4 years of work in 3 years. He’s done great at college for the last year and a half. (He’s going to the community college 15 minutes from home–we would never have sent him away somewhere that young!)

I don’t know if that helps or not, but our goal when he skipped a grade was never to get him done early. We just felt it was the right thing to do at the time, and for him in the end, it was. On the other hand, my next child won’t be getting done til she’s 19, and that’s ok too.

I think it’s so individual.  My oldest son by the time he is done will have over 30  high school credits, but it has just not been time for him to leave sooner.  I don’t want to pack them off any earlier than I HAVE to.  I think with many of our kids, the barrier between “school” and “not-school” is a lot more porous.  I mean, I suppose I *could* call my 17yo “done” just by the sheer number of credits he has, and the fact that he is not working at high school level in anything anymore.  He takes a class at the community college and does most of the rest nearly on his own.  BUT we have not had a graduation ceremony yet–this is happening in May for us–and I was TOTALLY not ready to pursue the very difficult college application process any sooner than this year.  We needed the time to figure out what he wanted to DO, exactly, and get all the paperwork and things prepared.  There are a zillion decisions to make. For example, the PSAT only counts for your National Merit Scholarship chances the year you are a “junior”.  You can’t then suddenly decide to graduate that year, OR a year later than you’d choose, or that score no longer counts.  Then you are out of the running for that big pool of merit money.  So there are a lot of things to think about.  Does your child want to go away to college?  Do you want to ship them across the country to a school when they are 16?  Community college might be a good option–BUT if you plan on needing lots of scholarship money like we do, then if you do a year of community college you are no longer a freshman, but a transfer student, and in many cases this translates into fewer scholarship chances.  There are students for which early graduation might be right, but just doing it because you can, or because this makes your kid seem smart, isn’t necessarily a good idea. Just some things to think about.  I used to be so frustrated at my school system growing up, because I really wanted to be advanced ahead so I could be done sooner, but I’m glad now my school system didn’t do that. 

In MN you can go to college for free your junior and senior year if you are still in high school. So here I would never graduate a student early but rather when I was finished with them I would send them to college for two years. My youngest son went there his senior year of high school.

Sorry, I should have explained things a little more clearly. My oldest daughter used to go to a public school. In jr high she was taking honors classes. In PA and I think a lot of other states but not read certain, we count hours to determine credits. We also have very strict reporting laws. My daughter will spend 120 hours studing chemistry and 120 hours studing astronomy. She can choose her science because our laws don’t specify what kind of science to take. That will equal 2 credits of science. The laws for English are more specific. She is following the homeschool requirement for our state for English and taking a textbook World Literature choice. Our school district gave permission for the textbook course. This will count as 2 English credits. She will still be registered as a homeschooled student next year but taking duel enrollment courses through a local college. Does that make things any clearer? My youngest daughter will probably not graduate early. I agree that it depends entirely upon the child. My oldest is getting a little bored with high school classes.