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Comment by germinalphrase | Hacker News Reader

Alternatively, why not just allow advanced students to graduate and start college/career early, if they so desire. I know this happens in exceptional cases, but why force a kid to just load up with AP classes (which may - but probably do not - match college level rigor) rather than simply taking college courses? If they're past what high school can offer then let them finish and leave. We keep far too many students in high school longer than they want/need to be. Most - in my experience - just start to coast at that point.

A separate school for "advanced" students doesn't outright bother me; however, I think defining "advanced" is more challenging than most would initially consider. There are many reasons that a student may be ahead/behind at any point in their education.

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College courses are a great option too (my school district allowed "dual enrollment" where you could take anywhere from one to all of your classes at one of the local community or state colleges). There are definitely some cases where the AP equivalent is "harder", better taught, or better suited to high-school age students, though.

I agree that defining "advanced" is very challenging, and goes beyond just the academic as well. There's also something to be said for being academically engaged with people similar to you (ie - some (most?) high school kids may learn more from peers in a self-selected AP Calculus class than they would from a Calc 1 class at the local college taken by kids looking to fill a requirement).

I remember my decision making process:

It seemed to me that if I took the dual/early enrollment college course that I would definitely get the credit, whereas the AP course would actually require far more repetitive homework, lots more class time (which I didn't want to do), and only then would I have a chance to qualify for college credit.

That's a no-brainer, in my book, but so many of my peers refused to follow my lead to the University when I tried to persuade them.

In spite of lots of sales training, I've never been a good salesman.

I know in California when I was in high school, it was free for high school kids to take community college courses. It was cheaper to take calculus at a community college because I didn't have to pay for the AP test. In addition, I knew it would automatically count as college credit, instead of the pseudo-credit you get for AP test results.

As an added bonus, I could compete calculus in a semester instead of a full year. It was way better for me.

I remember mine - I knew university was possible, but I had no idea how to get into the program. Latter it was explained to me that the school had to may for my classes so they would do everything they could to discourage students from taking that track without being obvious about it. They didn't allow any information to be in school, the guidance consular never mentioned it (not that I saw them).

By contrast AP was just a choice I could sign up for when choosing classes.

Exactly, they (the guidance counselors) did everything they could to persuade me not to do what was clearly, to me, in my best interests.

I do not have good feelings towards those people still to this day.

Of course, now I realize why when I asked him why he would discourage me, he repeated my question loudly for the rest of the guidance department to hear - he was covering his butt on the matter.

At least in my case, the time to mature was necessary. While I could have passed most of my college classes as a freshman in high school (at least the ones I took freshman year in college, unsure that I could have passed the higher maths I took with just an understanding of basic algebra/geometry), there were a lot of social lessons that I desperately needed. I can think of specific experiences throughout my high school that taught me how to (not) interact in various situations.

This is currently the approach used by my daughter's school (and a lot of others in Tennessee), dual enrollment. She has some high school classes and takes a few others at the local community college.

Next year she will be a senior and have one morning class at her high school, and the rest will be college. She should finish her Associate's (2 year) degree two semesters after graduating high school.

Some more academically gifted students have managed to graduate high school and finish their two year degree simultaneously.

>Some more academically gifted students have managed to graduate high school and finish their two year degree simultaneously

I did that, it's not as useful as it seems.

It's more useful than graduating high school and then having to go through two years of mediocre undergraduate courses, no?

What did you find non-useful about it? Did you end up having to take just as much undergraduate coursework to make up for some perceived deficiency?

I'm genuinely curious.

1) Pointless if you want to go to a top school. I don't go to one, so

2) Most dual enrollment programs restrict what coursework you can take. Near zero intersection with my CS coursework, though I did get my general ed requirements done.

3) It's community college, it's not something you can put on a resume.

With the credits I got I'd need to do a heavy schedule to graduate even in 3.

Thanks for the honest and useful response. It'll help me as I counsel my kids on what their options are and what they should do.

I agree with @akhilcacharya and had the same reasoning (ended up not doing the AA in high school for the same reason).

More restrictive set of courses for the AA means you're taking classes you don't enjoy for a requirement you don't need. The "name value" of a community college AA also isn't as great, particularly for kids who want to go to a higher-ranked public or top private university for undergrad.

That being said, if you know you want to go to a local/state school where the credits will transfer easily, getting the AA early can be great. I know people who graduated early but still received all 4 years of scholarship money (direct deposited in their bank).

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