A Homeshooler's Advice Sought on High School Plans(ZT)

Hi, parents,

I'm a 13 year old homeschooler finishing 8th grade. My parents are letting me design my own "school" plan for next year, so I was wondering what you think the ideal plan would be.

What I'm doing currently is studying calculus I at the University of Minnesota, taking an honors biology class in a lab space with other homeschoolers, learning Java at a commercial college, taking a CTD distance learning class in Logo, and continuing the EPGY C11C programming class. I also took an AP chemistry class earlier this year with my homeschooler support group.

Now I'm looking at different possibilities for my next school year. It might be that I could enroll full time at a community college, I can do full time distance learning, I can do full time at a strong high school. I could also do a mix of two of the last three. My main interests are math, computer science, and computer graphics. I do a lot of math competitions and have scored the highest score in my AMC region on the AMC 10, but I haven't done any computer competitions yet.

I spend most of my free time working on a computer role playing game, which my friends and I work on over a Google Group. I do most of the programming and graphics design in addition to beginning the script; at our current rate of progress this will probably take two years . I also play travelling soccer.

I'm very open minded about where and when I will enroll in college.

What kind of plan for next year would you recommend? What kind of learning experiences do you think I should be sure not to miss? I would appreciate any advice you have for me.

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A+MATH,

First of all, congratulations on the maturity you are demonstrating in asking for advice about shaping your high school curriculum. From the level of classes you are taking, I assume you are planning an early graduation and early attendance at college?

Second, your math, science, and computer science bases are all covered. As a high schooler interested in a college prep curriculum, you need to make sure all of the other bases are covered, too. That is, you need to demonstrate 4 years of English, at least 3 and preferrably 4 years of a language, and at least 3 years of history/social studies/humanities. And don't forget an experience in the arts of some kind or another (not necessarily performing, but, if this isn't your "thing," try visual arts or art history) as well as something physical.

Finally, push away from the keyboard and develop an outside interest. Whatever charges you up. Of if computers ARE your outside interest, pursue something about it out of the ordinary, above and beyond!

Best of luck!
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A+math:

You wouldn't be Tokenadult's son by any chance, would you?

If you were to enroll full-time in a community college, you would be 17 when you graduate. Then on to graduate school. A 17-year old joined my H's graduate group, and he was not very happy to be the lone teenager in a group full of 25 years old, some of them married. But that's only one story and there are other young students who have been very happy despite the disparity in age between them and their classmates.
If you were to go to the community college, how good a school is it? Once you've gone to a college, you can't really go to college again. you might pass up an opportunity to attend other schools with wonderful programs in the areas that interest you such as Harvard, Caltech, MIT, Princeton, etc... However, if the college has what you want in terms of breadth of offerings and quality of curriculum, then do consider going there, even full-time.
Quuiltguru's advice about covering all bases is excellent. And since you are so advanced in math and science, you should have plenty of time meeting those requirements.
I'll be very interested in what you decide, so keep us posted!
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I agree with xxxx-- definitely make sure to take what courses you need for college prep. You need not take the same things a regular school would have. You just need to have courses in the right categories. My daughter managed to touch all the bases while still structuring her high school education as she wished and continuing study in the area that interests her the most. The great majority of the courses on her high school transcript are not ones offered in local schools.

You can certainly come to the homeschooling board for any specific details, hints, etc. You probably already know about the high school homeschooling boards out there too, right? (A good Yahoo group is hs2coll, in case you didn't.). This will give you ideas and experience from those who have gone through the college application process successfully. You can also find folks who have dealt with interests similar to yours (my homeschooled child [now in college] is into Egyptology, so what we did is far different than what would suit you).

Many homeschoolers do have community college courses on their transcripts, either to show some objective evaluation or to get courses otherwise difficult to do at home. I wouldn't advise being a full-time student, however, because then you would go to a 4 year college as a transfer -- which may lead to higher hurdles, difficulties establishing credit for particular courses and the like. (Then this might not be a concern, if your state system has the sort of arrangement where there is an explicit understanding between the state's 2 and 4 year colleges as to admissions, transfer of credits, and the like and a state 4 year college is where you want to end up.) We didn't go the CC route; I would advise asking on a homeschool list about the various in's and out's if you are leaning toward this possibility.

Actually, you may be too young to be a full-time CC student in your state. I think in my state one has to be at least 16. I know that a friend's son took some courses when he was younger and the college required her to physically escort him to and from each class. He couldn't, say, hang out in the library studying between classes. It was very burdensome, to say the least. Then he reported that he thought the courses went too slowly because his classmates didn't understand the material.

But then, I've heard of kids who did like their CC courses. So you may wish to ask around and see what the rep of your local CC is.

Since homeschooling is working for you academically, you seem satisfied with it, and you obviously are getting out of the house and interacting with your peers frequently in a variety of settings, there is no reason to change what you are doing. There are more possibilities than you list. You can take courses at a regular college, a CC, by correspondence or online, with other homeschoolers, or at home -- in any combination. You may even live in a place that allows homeschoolers to take certain courses at the local high school. Figure out what you want to take and then see the best way to go about it.

A couple other suggestions -- if you can continue taking math at the University of Minnesota, definitely do so. My son took calculus early too, and then did three years of the Stanford EPGY program. The program is good, but is administered, well, not so well. Other people have shared with me similar tales of bureaucratic delays. Then it turns out my son's university would not accept the EPGY credits (silly us, we thought "Stanford credits" would work ...). He didn't have to retake the courses, but he could have simply studied the material by himself and declared that he didn't need to take them, too!

Get hold of one or more of the books by Cafi Cohen. She has written about homeschooling teens, high school, college admission, etc. You may also find "The Well-Trained Mind" and "Reading Lists for College-Bound Students" useful in figuring out how to handle courses that don't get farmed out.

Any homeschooling list can give you suggestions about writing programs, textbooks for particular subjects, etc.

I don't mean to be overwhelming. You plan a little at a time and before you know it you've got it. And, if something doesn't work, you can always move on to something else. You have a great deal of flexibility to come up with a customized education, as you no doubt already realize.