News Feature: Mom sends six kids to college by age 12

[Omnipedia]

Wow, I missed quite a bit.  I was away for the past few weeks,  kids and hubby sick and all.

Thanks for posting this! I looked up some of the information and even bought Mrs. Harding's book. They seem to have a lovely and inspirational family. I also love that they tell the whole truth and bring to light what she said others refer to as  "loop holes" in the ability to by-pass highschool to get ahead to college earlier than usual and in some cases, cheaper than traditional paths. Apparently, there are some pretty good loop holes/opportunities in the US to achieve this but rarely is it talked about.

The one thing that concerns me, however, is that starting college early may limit the choice of colleges. For example, an average kid can get college credits early and even go to the local community college or less-well-known university or even transfer over to a decent state college....but then, they missed their chance to attend an Ivy, i.e. Harvard, Yale, etc... or even a decent bigger name school. So even though they finished early and getting the degree was probably cheaper, will it be useful in the long run? What happens next in terms of career and prospects?

My concerns stem from Mrs. Harding's book where she mentions that one daughter with two Masters degrees ended up working part-time as a teacher for a Christian private school only to leave because the pay was terrible and wound up having to leave home and find a job in California as a quality assurance tech (this is the one with the hopes for NASA). The daughter who went to medical school, was rejected by several M.D. schools after receiving her bachelors and was finally able to get into a D.O school after going through a masters program. So in essence she's not an M.D. but a D.O. still a doctor though. However, does that make it harder to go through a residency program? 

Also, once you fully enroll into a college (even at 12, 13, etc...) you will no longer be able to apply as a freshman anywhere else. You'll be a transfer student and in many top schools, there is an even less chance of getting in. Stanford's freshman acceptance rate is 6.6% Their transfer student acceptance rate is 1.5% The loophole to that is having your kid be a "Dual enrollment" student while in "highschool" and/or achieving college credits through CLEPs (testing out and getting credit, although many top schools are picky when it comes to accepting transfer credits). Then you can still be considered a freshman in case later your child wants to apply to an Ivy or better known school. Which then brings up the question.... does big name vs. lesser known college matter? Interestingly, a few days ago there was an article on the NY Times that talked about this. Also Time had an article on April 2 about how this year the Ivies had record low acceptance rates.

Finally, what about IB and Gifted programs? Such as Stanford University's EPGY in California or The Mirman school or Stuveysant in NY or even boarding schools (they have a high number of acceptance rates to Ivies)?

We have a 10-year-old son and are finding tons of information on this. We have to figure out what our priorities are (finish early vs. maintaining quality of outcome, if possible both) but most importantly, what our son wants to do

P.S. I just want to add how I totally love this community. You guys have many interesting topics and are so supportive. 



 

[Korrale4kq]

I don't think it necessarily excludes access to top tier colleges. I am not sure about the bonafide Ivy's but we live near Kenyon College it is considered one of the best Liberal Arts Colleges in the US. It certainly costs more than Harvard or Yale. But they offer a KAP program. These are college classes for well achieving high school students. Granted this would be cnsidered dual entry.
I honestly think that quality education doesn't HAVE to come from an Ivy Leauge school. There are certainly some lesser well performing colleges. But there are also some amazing state schools.

As for the D.O vs M.D.... A D.O is not inferior to an M.D by any means. They are both medical drs. A D.O does slightly different training. In fact many would argue that the training is more rigiorous. Our family dr is a D.O that we chose because of the whole body philosophy.

[Omnipedia]

Oh no, of course I'm not suggesting that a D.O is inferior to an M.D. They are two different philosophies yet both have very rigorous paths. By no means am I here to start a debate on schools and/or philosophies. 

My concern comes from what I read in the book (PDF file) that Mrs. Harding's daughter was rejected by not one but several M.D. schools and was ultimately not able to get into ANY M.D. school that she applied to, thereby her choice was limited to D.O. schools by first having to spend time at a masters program. One hopes that by accelerating their child's education, one of the benefits would be to have access to a wider array of choices when it comes to career opportunities. However, in this case, I can't help to think maybe if her daughter had taken the traditional path or at least, a less accelerated path, she may still have been able to get into the M.D. school she wanted to go to.
 
Mrs. Harding's other daughter was in a similar boat... She applied to NASA but with budget cuts and all, wasn't able to get in. So here she is very young with two master's degrees and she's teaching part-time barely able to support herself (she quit because of the low pay). On the other hand, Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, and Mark Zuckerberg don't have any degrees and I'd say they did pretty well (although yes, for every one of Steve Jobs, there are other would-be Jobs without a degree that probably wish they had finished school). Ergo, having a degree early or having more degrees doesn't necessarily mean a better result.

Everyone's measure of success is different. I believe there are many other stories of families who have children who did finish college early and their kids did remarkably well.  As for us, with our youngster, we're looking out for every opportunity available including that of finishing college earlier than usual. I'm thankful to queriquita for bringing up the Harding's story. 

[Mandabplus3]

Over here most of the universities are equal. Only one ( bond) has an elite status that means something and it only counts if you are studying law. The rest are just a pretty picture on the top of a graduate certificate  .....actually in all my career changes only once has anyone actually asked to see ( and copy for their records) my degree certificate. Even then I had to convince them they should copy both certificates not just one, as one is post grad and doesn't count without the other! 
Early finishing at any university counts if you are in Australia. Wonder about the rest of the world?
I am looking for shortcuts through high school but I am finding it very difficult here. Trees e seems to be firm rules and pathways. Possible due to a very small demand overall. I have a few more years to find it all out though 

[Kimba15]

@ mandab Some public schools in SA offer a high school acceleration program where you can finish high school in 4 not 5 years 8-10 are condenced and you do SACE as normal over the two years. That is one way. You are always welcome here in good ol' Adelaide anytime. ehehehehehehe. Might be worth googling Glenunga International High school and have a look on their website and then see if any schools on Brisbane offer the same or similar program. The only other thing is being zoned for the school. Zoning is a big thing in South Australia and sometimes unless you live in that zone you can't get in but i'm sure you know that!!!!


I guess the other way is to homeschool them. Talk to your DECS and see what they do for homeschool kids who finish high school early if that is option.

[Mandabplus3]

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.  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 
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.

[Korrale4kq]

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.

[Omnipedia]

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

[Mandabplus3]

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.  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    if nothing else their response will tell me how open they are to the whole idea of early entry.

[nee1]

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.

[Korrale4kq]

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.

[Neptune]

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

[Korrale4kq]

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.

[Korrale4kq]

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.

[Mandabplus3]

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 
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  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. 

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