Starting university at a younger-than-usual age

[chocolate-chip chooky]

It's been a while since I've posted here, but I was a regular for many years, posting about my ups and downs with my homeschooled accelerated learner.

Well, my  daughter has now officially finished highschool and has been accepted into university. She's 14.

I'm hoping that some of you can offer some advice or share some experiences about your children who started uni at a young age.

She'll be living at home and we'll be commuting in together, most likely with me on campus somewhere while she's in classes. There are a few things that the uni has put in place for her, which are all reasonable and doable, such as meeting regularly with a welfare officer.

@quark

@Dmmetler

@Arcadia

@EndOfOrdinary

@Donna

@lewelma

@Runningmom80

 

I don't even know if you are all still here, but I do know that you were all very helpful and inspiring over the years - thank you 🌼  

If you have any words of wisdom, I'm all ears, and if you can think of anyone else I should ping please let me know.

 

Edited January 21, 2021 by chocolate-chip chooky

[chocolate-chip chooky]

@SeaConquest Hello! If I remember correctly, your two boys are younger than my daughter. How are they going? I hope I haven't got you mixed up with someone else, but were you studying nursing? If so, I hope it has all gone well.

[chocolate-chip chooky]

@BaseballandHockeyHello. Fancy meeting you here 😊

[SeaConquest]

6 hours ago, chocolate-chip chooky said:

@SeaConquest Hello! If I remember correctly, your two boys are younger than my daughter. How are they going? I hope I haven't got you mixed up with someone else, but were you studying nursing? If so, I hope it has all gone well.

You have an excellent memory! Welcome back! Yes, my boys are 12 and 7. Sacha (my oldest) did start taking college classes last semester. He went with something easy to start (aviation -- major), but he ended up dropping the classes because he was really overloaded last semester with a writing class that he was taking through the Davidson Academy Online. The class ended up being much more demanding than we had anticipated, so we dropped a few of his enrichment classes, including the aviation courses, which was really disappointing for him because he was enjoying the classes. He is trying again this semester with a college chemistry class and may add a computer science course (still debating). 

I did stay on campus (usually) when he was there. I just homeschooled my younger one while Sacha was in class. Most of the classes in CA universities are online right now, but because he was using flight simulators, he had to go to campus once per week. His age has not been a big deal so far. We just email the professors ahead of time so they are not surprised. Sacha doesn't have to get any special permission because he bypassed all of that by taking a special test here in California that essentially makes him equivalent to a high school graduate (even though he is in 6th grade). So, he just enrolled online like any other student, without any special permission or hoopla.

The other thing that has been helpful has been for him to sit in the front and for me to make sure that I go over his assignments with him. Each week, we talk about his assignments and load everything into our Google Calendars so they are all sync'ed up. He needs visual reminders, Alexa or phone alarms, etc. because he is easily distractible and will forget about a class or an assignment if he doesn't have reminders/alarms going off all the time and me checking in. He just has too much work at this point for me to leave it all up to him. I tried that at the beginning of the semester and he was drowning without my help.  He is 12 and doesn't have the executive functioning skills of a 19 year old, so I am trying to teach him those skills by modeling what I do. He can do the work; he just needs help staying on top of the work. Your daughter is likely better about that stuff.

I am not sure how things are in Australia. It sounds much more organized, and obviously you don't have the Covid issues. 

Edited January 22, 2021 by SeaConquest

[Arcadia]

My teens are still in high school. They just start community college classes at 14. My DS16 was already 1.81m tall when he started so he gets mistaken for an 18 year old easily.
 

My husband or I drop him off and I would pick him up after class. Sometimes I go grocery shopping or my medical appointments so he will wait at the college cafeteria for me after his classes. He does have at least $20 in cash on him so he can buy lunch or snacks if he wants. He has his own mobile phone for years.
 

All the classes were online since March 2020.

[Dmmetler]

My teen graduates in May with two years+ of classes completed concurrently, and is trying to decide between the top 5 schools (after narrowing the list a lot before application and then more afterwards). Unless COVID just doesn't allow it, the plan is to live on campus, so this will be the real leap away from home. The main reason for graduating now vs a couple of years ago is that the local options aren't particularly appealing. 

 

In general, there wasn't a big adjustment. Going from homrschooled with online classes occasionally ended up being good preparation. There have been some hiccups the last two semesters with online courses that were not really intended to be online originally, and showed it, and just with COVID related stress. 

[MamaSprout]

Like Dmmetler, we don't have good local options, so we've continued to DE/ distance ed and stay in high school. I'm pretty sure dd is going away "to college" next year, but in a way that she's still technically in high school. She'll be 16 in the fall, and I'm much more comfortable with her going away as a 16 year old than I would have been at 14. Definitely don't rush the moving out part. ETA, my dd looks 18 and everyone just thinks she's a math major because they never see her in their math classes and she helps them with their spreadsheets. 

Honestly, since your dd is still at home, you can help her with her executive function stuff. That's the biggest hurdle. Has she taken any college classes before? For some kids, there is an expectations and pacing learning curve.

Edited January 22, 2021 by MamaSprout

[chocolate-chip chooky]

Thank you all for your replies.

Our whole system here is quite different, so the idea of doing college classes while still technically a highschool student is foreign to me (pardon the pun 😉).  Actually, that's not entirely true.  Highschool seniors here can access some limited options of first-year university classes, in some exceptional circumstances, but only as a standard school student. This option isn't open to homeschooled students. Not in my state, anyway.

Executive function skills are not a concern at all for us, luckily. 

We're also VERY lucky when it comes to Covid here. It is VERY tightly managed and therefore is usually under control.

The sort of things that we are pondering are things like:

- Is it a good idea for the lecturer to know her age upfront, or should she just be another student? (It's possible the uni will decide this for us. We don't know yet.)

- How will other students treat her? She's not concerned overall, because she's a pretty self-assured person, but she's a bit iffy about things like group work, and if other students will include her and listen to her.

- She knows she'll have to be upfront about her age in social situations. She can't let her peers assume she's 17/18+, so she'll need to bring that up pretty early on.

 

So, our questions are less about the academic side of things, and more about the people side of things.

 

[Arcadia]

7 minutes ago, chocolate-chip chooky said:

 

- She knows she'll have to be upfront about her age in social situations. She can't let her peers assume she's 17/18+, so she'll need to bring that up pretty early on.

 

So, our questions are less about the academic side of things, and more about the people side of things.

 

@regentrude

I think you may have to consider people on campus thinking of her as a “girlfriend target”not knowing her age.

Also the drinking part. My alma mater had a no alcohol on campus rule but people were definitely drinking beer and/or wine. Where I am from, drinking age is 18, same as Australia’s.

[chocolate-chip chooky]

6 minutes ago, Arcadia said:

@regentrude

I think you may have to consider people on campus thinking of her as a “girlfriend target”not knowing her age.

Also the drinking part. My alma mater had a no alcohol on campus rule but people were definitely drinking beer and/or wine. Where I am from, drinking age is 18, same as Australia’s.

Yes, absolutely this.

We have been brainstorming about the potential suitors or suitresses aspect. 

I'm not really concerned about the drinking thing, as I expect the self-assured part of her will manage that just fine. I don't think I have my head in the sand on this, but I'll keep my eyes wide open, as the majority of her peers will be of legal drinking age and there are bars on campus, as far as I know.

[chocolate-chip chooky]

@regentrude Any words of wisdom will be appreciated 🙂 

[The Governess]

My dd started taking classes at the community college at 14. She never told her professors her age. I don’t think they knew either - she asked a prof to write a letter of recommendation for her for college admissions and he was surprised that she was still in high school. It was never an issue and she didn’t really want them to know anyway, she wanted to be treated like any other student.

Her age did come up sometimes with peers. She didn’t tell them in advance, just if it was pertinent to the situation (not allowed to leave campus, can’t vote yet, etc.) or came up in conversation (where did you go to high school, etc.). The other students seemed to take it in stride.
 

She did have some groupwork to do but they usually met on campus or over facetime to do that. It was never an issue. She usually found a couple people in class to exchange info with in case she was absent or had a question on an assignment, etc.

We did save literature/writing classes for when she was a bit older because some more mature themes can come up. 

[Dmmetler]

My favorite statement was one a math prof made in a recommendation rating form for governor’s school, where he listed maturity as “typical of a college student”. Since L was 13 at the time, I figured that was a high compliment. In general, L hasn’t been up front about age, but it has come up. Realistically, at 12 there was no hiding it. At 16, it’s much easier. The problem has been less pickups and more overprotection from peers :). 

[regentrude]

My dd stareted taking classes at the local university at age 13, while a homeschooled highschool student. She always looked older than her age, so the other students didn't know that she was so young. At age 15, she worked as a tutor in the tutoring center for calculus based Engineering physics. She wasn't supposed to tell anyone her age so the students wouldn't feel bad. (The professors knew, since I teach at the school)

She made great friends, her tight knit group were all college seniors. Age difference of 6/7 years. They of course knew she was young,  but it didn't matter in any way.

There were a few funny situations when students tried to ask her out and then backed off mortified immediately when she told them how young she was. Never any problems there with creeps.

She completed 36 credits in physics,  French, and English before moving away to her real university at age 17.

Edited January 23, 2021 by regentrude

[MamaSprout]

1 hour ago, regentrude said:

 

She made great friends, her tight knit group were all college seniors. Age difference of 6/7 years. They of course knew she was young,  but it didn't matter in any way.

I wish my dd would be more comfortable with this. She's pushing for an early college boarding school right now, I think in part because most of who she's connecting with at the DE university are guys who are junior and senior engineering students, so 5/6 or so years older. It's kind of weirded some of the guys out, too, but most just treat her like a favorite little sister.

 

[Not_a_Number]

Hello! Long time no see 🙂 . 

(I used to have a different username, although we didn't intersect for very long. But we did talk a few times.) 

I'm glad to hear your daughter is doing well! I'll be unsurprised if we wind up doing something similar, so I'm here to listen to ideas 🙂 . 

[Dmmetler]

I also will say-I think it makes a difference as to how "dating minded" your teen is. Mine wasn't. Like, at all. It also helps that the campus is very diverse in age, so while 12 was an extreme, it wasn't any more extreme than the Palestinian grandmother trying to earn enough credits to get a US teaching certificate. Most of the peer friendships were mixed age, so it wasn't a case of a 4-5 year age span, but a case more of a 20+ year one.  I will say that I am confident one motivation for wanting to go away to school NOW is that, at 16, significant others are becoming more...significant. I suspect the family history of two parents who met in an early college summer program might also have something to do with it :). 

[lewelma]

My older ds's did not attend university young. After taking 2 university math classes at our local university, he found that they were just too easy and he would rather self study. He did not want to be the top student at 5 years younger than the others. We did some research and found that all the universities in NZ were at the same level, and that there was no place for him here. Once he decided that he would be going overseas for university, I wanted him to be 18. He started 5 days before his 18th birthday. MIT allowed him to skip undergraduate math classes, and start with grad classes in his Freshman year.

Edited January 25, 2021 by lewelma

[Lilaclady]

My oldest(17) started taking college classes at 13 but matriculated at 16. Some of the cons that she has encountered are

1. it can be hard to get research opportunities because some colleges/departments will just have blank requirement of being 18. 

2 some companies also have blank requirement for internships that students have to be 18. 
3. study abroad- she had researched and we found lots of information  on the school’s website but no information stating you have to be 18 to go on study abroad until during the new admitted student orientation. 
 

[Dmmetler]

We've run into age restrictions as well. One of the big ones is that education classes requiring a practicum will have to wait until age 18, and some schools require Ed majors to start practicum as early as 2nd year. For this, the run-around is to NOT do it as a double major, but to do the Ed program as a 4+1 (which will probably be more like a 2+1, so the Ed classes don't start until after the primary degree is finished. An added bonus on that is that at most schools, it is easy to turn a 4+1 into a master's, and, again, this can probably happen within the 4 year scholarship period. This is one of the few times in our homeschool journey that I actually felt my professional background was helpful-because education degrees at state U's in TN is one thing I do know about, and I know the options, like a B. ED vs 4+1 certificate on top of a B.S. or B.A. vs a B.S. +M. ED. 

 

I will also say that your role as advisor hasn't ended. It may be different in your system, but certainly though the CC/DE years here, the college advisors simply couldn't help much beyond a signature here and there. 

[Porridge]

I’d be interested in hearing perspectives on an 8th grader / 13 year old taking Community College classes - (not full 4 year university, child would still living at home, taking 1 or 2 classes, not a full time CC student).   I was not planning to utilize our Community until high school (9th-12th grades) but DD’s homeschool friends and academic peers are older and will start CC classes next year. My main concern is that if she does not follow her friends to CC, she may not have academic peers and it may be lonely for her.  If she does do CC, it would probably be science classes, which I *think* she will be able to handle. (She wants to stick with AOPS Online for math). I worry the subject matter in humanities classes may be too mature for her, so we would avoid those for another few years.

 

edited to add: If she had robust social circles I wouldn’t even consider CC, but those social circles broke up due to relocations

Edited February 6, 2021 by JHLWTM

[Kassia]

1 hour ago, JHLWTM said:

I’d be interested in hearing perspectives on an 8th grader / 13 year old taking Community College classes - (not full 4 year university, child would still living at home, taking 1 or 2 classes, not a full time CC student).   I was not planning to utilize our Community until high school (9th-12th grades) but DD’s homeschool friends and academic peers are older and will start CC classes next year. My main concern is that if she does not follow her friends to CC, she may not have academic peers and it may be lonely for her.  If she does do CC, it would probably be science classes, which I *think* she will be able to handle. (She wants to stick with AOPS Online for math). I worry the subject matter in humanities classes may be too mature for her, so we would avoid those for another few years.

 

edited to add: If she had robust social circles I wouldn’t even consider CC, but either those social circles broke up due to relocations, or we haven’t found good fits, despite lots of experimentation.

My dd started CC the summer before 9th grade when she was still 13 and it was a good experience for her.  She took things like foreign language, science, government, etc. and waited for classes like humanities and English for the reason you mentioned - the subject matter/discussion.  We have a very nice CC with (mostly) good professors and a wide range of ages of students.  I think this worked better for her than her being in classes with all traditional college students.  

[Dmmetler]

L applied and was accepted at the CC at 11, and started just past turning 12. It has been nothing but a positive experience. And that's with taking a lot of humanities classes that involve sensitive subjects. In many respects, I think the CC was a better start because the age range was so wide. When half a class is students outside the 18-25 age group, being below 18 just is less of an issue, and when everyone is a commuter, and most students are juggling school and work you don't get left out by being off campus, or by only taking classes part time because you still have high school requirements, too. 

 

We did start with math, foreign language, etc, but psychology, English, Sociology, History etc ended up being really positive and having a wide range of viewpoints. I will say that due to the state scholarship, our local CC has a great honors college and has had some really Awesome classes. 

Edited February 5, 2021 by Dmmetler

[MamaSprout]

Dd started at 13 with a Computer Applications class. It was an excellent first class. If you want to start with science, I strongly suggest a non-lab science for non- majors as a very first course. Dd did a Chem for majors with a lab her 3rd semester, and it was perfect. The spreadsheet skills she learned the first semester really helped.

Absolutely scope out your professors ahead of time. 
 

ETA- we actually have a 4-year as our only option. I think a CC would actually be better b/c of the age mix.

ETA2- When she applied, they insisted on a high school transcript... so I created a subject transcript of the high school level classes dd had done. It did give me pause, though, writing a HS transcript for an 8th grader. They technically didn’t want her on campus b/f she was 14, but  She did turn 14 during the first class.

Edited February 6, 2021 by MamaSprout

[Not_a_Number]

5 minutes ago, MamaSprout said:

ETA- we actually have a 4-year as our only option. I think a CC would actually be better b/c of the age mix.

Do you think that would be the case in general, regardless of the quality of classes? We've always kind of assumed we'd start at a 4-year school, since that's where DH works. But I never thought about the age mix perspective. 

(I am planning ahead here, but it's already very clear that DD8 will want to take college classes either in middle school or early high school.) 

[MamaSprout]

24 minutes ago, Not_a_Number said:

Do you think that would be the case in general, regardless of the quality of classes? We've always kind of assumed we'd start at a 4-year school, since that's where DH works. But I never thought about the age mix perspective. 

(I am planning ahead here, but it's already very clear that DD8 will want to take college classes either in middle school or early high school.) 

I think it does apply in a general, but not absolute, kind of way. My older kids did a lot of DE at the same university back before the local high schools made it almost impossible to take classes away from the school building. (The HS are going to either online or DE taught at the high school- not a lot of AP here). 
 

My older kids had a good experience. They still talk about professors or who did what goofy thing in class, etc. Lots of kids they knew also did DE, and because there were so many DE kids on campus at the time, the college students took it in stride. Now, dd is kind of an anomaly, and the college students are like, “It’s a child!” (She looks like a college student, though) Not mean or anything, but dd isn’t really making friends, either.

Edited February 6, 2021 by MamaSprout

[Not_a_Number]

1 minute ago, MamaSprout said:

I think it does apply in a general, but not absolute, kind of way. My older kids did a lot of DE at the same university back before the local high schools made it almost impossible to take classes away from the school building. (The HS are going to either online or DE taught at the high school- not a lot of AP here). 

My older kids had a good experience. They still talk about professors or who did what goofy thing in class, etc. Lots of kids they knew also did DE, and because there were so many DE kids on campus at the time, the college students took it in stride. Now, dd is kind if an anomaly, and the college students are like, “It’s a child!” (She looks like a college student, though) Not mean or anything, but dd isn’t really making friends, either.

Interesting. DH also took university classes in high school, and he reports the undergrads kind of treating him as a pet, lol. So... definitely not good for making friends. 

[Dmmetler]

15 hours ago, Not_a_Number said:

Do you think that would be the case in general, regardless of the quality of classes? We've always kind of assumed we'd start at a 4-year school, since that's where DH works. But I never thought about the age mix perspective. 

(I am planning ahead here, but it's already very clear that DD8 will want to take college classes either in middle school or early high school.) 

I think it depends on what schools you have. In our case, the options locally were the CC, which was close to home and affordable, a large state U which is heavily football/greek life/party focused (and having taught there, I know that reputation has a lot of reality to it, particularly for new freshmen), and private LACs that were just plain cost prohibitive.  We actually did the application process at the first two, and honestly, everything came out to the CC being better for our needs at that time. Most of the lower division classes at the State U were BIG, lecture hall sections, often taught by graduate TAs. It felt like it would be easy to fall through the cracks, and that self-advocacy would be hard.  A majority of students attending just continue on as the next step after high school, because it's the school they have been watching sports events at since they were little. There are some amazingly excellent programs there, but mostly after you've finished the gen ed core. They also are very limiting in what they allow students to take DE or non-degree before fully matriculating (at the time, the calculus sequence for STEM majors was limited to degree seeking students). The honors sections were also limited to degree seeking students. And, of the state U system, they are probably the weakest for L's interests (strong biomedical school, but not terribly great if you're interested in anything but humans).  

 

The CC largely has classes of 30 or less, and most are 20 or less. There is a big focus on student support and on making sure students succeed, and a lot of dialog between instructors and students. Most instructors are either also teachers at the other schools (a lot of them teach at the LACs and also at the CC) or are working professionals. The school is an odd mix of technical 2 year straight to work degrees, a big health professions program, and students doing gen ed courses at the smaller, less expensive school to transfer to the state U. Because my state has tuition waived CC for many people, there are enough high performing students to have honors sections of many gen ed classes, which are even smaller and tend to be discussion and research based. They also have a lot of classes that are, honestly, just a professor spending a semester teaching the honors students about their research and what they are enthusiastic about, which fulfill box checking requirements-and were an AWESOME way to tick high school boxes. Many of these don't directly transfer except as elective/gen ed credit because even the larger schools don't necessarily have such classes (one sociology professor commented that the closest equivalent was a class offered to graduate students, and was pretty amazed that a community college was offering a class in that area). 

 

So, even without the age range,the CC was simply a better fit for a kid who needed college content, but not to progress to a degree. Had L wanted to progress to a degree more directly, it still would have made sense to start at the CC, matriculate there, finish an AS, and then transfer to the local state U and go directly into the smaller, more focused, and more academic upper division classes, and accept that the bio major would be focused on humans, not animals. 

 

And, while it wasn't the primary reason for the decision, the fact that the CC was less than 1/3 of the price per credit hour made a big difference, too-my state has free CC for high school graduates, but not for gifted 12 yr olds. 

 

 

I'm on an early college parent group and I would say that it's about 1/2 and 1/2 as to whether to start at a CC or 4 year, and for every situation where a CC is a better choice, there is one where a 4 year is a better choice.