Is this child a boy or a girl? It makes a difference.

Both my kids are enrolled in universities, full-time, joined at age 15. The boy audited a Biology first year course when he was 13 years to see what he thought. He’s very tall, but not shaving at all. A freshman in the class turned around and asked him if he had the notes from the previous lecture because he had missed the class. My son just said sorry he didn’t. In other words, the freshmen just assumed he belonged.

However, with my daughter, totally different story. Very late bloomer. Tall and skinny. At 13 she could be mistaken for 10 years old.

Here’s the thing: completely different safety profile. For me, would I let a boy run around campus of 20,000 students? Yes. Both my kids have been “Street proofed” as much as one can and they both have excellent common sense. However, are there far different logistics in letting a 15 year old girl run around campus? You bet.

My boy took university mathematics starting when he was 11, it was for older kids middle school students, but he was allowed to join early. Interestingly, he talked about joining university early with his peers in that club, and funnily enough he and the 14 year olds identified that if they did go to university, and graduated by age 18, they would go through university without a single date.

When he told me this, I laughed, seriously, who’d have anticipated an 11 year old with 14 year olds would be talking about something like that?

Anyway, if your student is a girl, you may wish to think about ways in which you’re going to keep her safe and if she has the maturity and understanding to be able to keep herself safe. Obviously campuses are not rife with criminal activity, not at all, but if it’s an exceedingly large campus, it only takes one bad apple to create a dangerous situation for your daughter.

Only you and this student will know what’s the right choice.

In terms of social emotional development, that’s obviously totally critical. Life is about so much more than academics, it’s about joy. However, what some people don’t understand, is that being in a school with typically developing peers is profoundly isolating for precocious, highly capable students, and that certainly can be detrimental to joy.

The sad truth is somebody like that is probably going to be isolated regardless of where they go, if they remain in public school, they’re going to be both bored and isolated or not necessarily included, and if they go to university, they may get academic needs met, but they still won’t get to have a social life because they will be immature relative to 18 year old freshman peers.

So, you’re going to have to think holistically about what the best solution is. There are no right or wrong answers, there’s only what fits best for your particular student.

I hear Williams and Mary’s College has an early entrance program, and I know there are others.

My kids are thriving at university, but everybody’s experience is going to be completely different. For example, I also know a family who put forward their child for this pathway, and I scratched my head when they did because I didn’t see the fit, of course, I said nothing, and sure enough after year, the student separated from the University, and joined back into high school. I also know another family, whose kid was clearly brilliant, but they would know Wei sent him to university early because they thought he needed the maturity and social skills that he was going to get in a high school environment by mixing with all kinds of different kids. He was a genius, but he was unfiltered and quite quirky, alienating, lots and lots of his peers, so he had a lot to figure out in that regard. Even though that public high school didn’t come close to meeting his academic needs, he still got through it , found his groove, and was later accepted to Harvard.

Gauge your child’s total needs, their thirst for learning, their need for social interactions. Is denying them access to rigor and complex subject matter starving them and causing them to wither? How’s their tolerance for a social stress and coping in alien environments? Are they introverts or extroverts?

Another crucial piece is how are they at being self advocates a crappy year in high school could reveal how able they are to navigate teachers with a multitude of different attitudes, that can help you pinpoint their readiness to take on the challenge of university learning.

What do they say they want for themselves?

I know with my firstborn, people always told me that he’d find his tribe once he was at University, and it got to the point where I just thought well why does he have to wait for that. I remember approaching the topic with my best friend, when he was 11, And I can tell you that people who don’t have these types of students really don’t understand. You get a ton of judgment, massive amounts of judgment for all kinds of insecurities that have absolutely nothing to do with your student or their situation.

Be very thoughtful about the path you follow, and trust your instincts, make sure you speak with all the educators in whichever institution, you’re thinking about, and trust your gut instinct.

The other thing we had to manage was making sure our kids had true humility, we made sure to always point out that everybody has strengths and weaknesses, and that it is a strength to have a lot of curiosity, and be the kind of student who always has 1 million questions, but like any strength, it doesn’t make you better or worse than any other person.

Lastly, note that there are certain substances in labs, that persons under the age of 18 are not allowed to interact with. Certain reagents and biologicals. That would come in to play if your child was able to gain position doing undergrad research. Note that most labs don’t use those regulated materials, but it is something to be aware of.

Lastly, you can get feedback from current teachers, what they feel, could best serve the total needs of your student. They may not have had a lot of children such as yours, but still they presumably spent a great deal of time with your student in a learning context and can see how the child functions, in terms of independence and maturity of communications and us how they potentially could fare in a university environment. Just because the child requires rigor in order to learn, doesn’t mean they have the executive function, the student teaching skills, the organizational abilities, necessary to track assignments, break, labs down into chunks, accomplish all the reading, and get the deliverables done on time. Also note that in university, the style of teaching is very different, a lot of the subject matter is expected to be self taught, and while there is direct instruction, there’s very little of it, and mostly the students have to do their own learning through the textual materials and homework assignments, and that might be exceedingly frustrating for a younger person.

One test for readiness could be to give your child a first year university chemistry textbook, and see if he or she can plow through it independently.

I hope your child has friends who are passionate learners, sometimes the best experiences, through shared common interests, whether it’s magic, the gathering, chess, volunteering at the zoo, swim team, dance club, geocaching, etc.