What are your ethics on quitting High school, to get into a degree faster?

The title is already self-explanatory enough.

 

I agree - go for it!

 

I agree that it would be fine. But don't waste time in getting around to that GED and going on to college. The danger lies in quitting school, getting a job and never going on to get a degree. I have a couple of young friends who have done just that and it has not turned out so well for them. I think the average person would be well-advised to stay on track with high school and let it prepare them for college. That is, unless you are just plain exceptional. And you could very well be.

 

There are lots of community colleges that will let high school kids enroll in courses. You can then often use those cc credits to satisfy high school requirements. This means you can start your college career without quitting high school.

 

i'd do dual-degree if possible with a community colleges. if youre the type that would do well with a plan like that, you would also be the type that would be in a credit situation in HS that would allow you to do so. so either do that, or go to summer school and just graduate early.

if there is no dual-degree program where you live, you can always take classes online (shout out to shawn a) while finishing your diploma.

 

In some ways, you could say my son (and my daughter when she reaches HS age) is doing just that. We homeschool, and have a 4-yr plan for him that includes studying for a certain course - such as US history - and completing the course with a CLEP/DSST exam. This way, he gets his high school credit and college credit at the same time. There are a few exceptions to this plan, where he will be using dual enrollment at the local CC, and we may possibly include some DL studies, if he feels he would rather go that route.

He does have to do "extra" courses in order to have enough for the BA he wants; which is to say, he could really get away with a basic plan of 7 classes a year (5 full year and 2 semester courses), in order to earn what he needs for a high school diploma, but that alone would not earn him enough credits for the BA.

Obviously, this isn't *quite* the same thing as taking a GED and bypassing high school, but from a homeschooling stand-point, we decided that since he was clearly capable of the work, there was no reason not to combine the two, to "get the degree faster."

 

I'd like a bit more info before I answer the question. Are you public schooled, home schooled, grade level, age, future goals, etc. Because I believe it depends.

Shawn

 

If I had known of this forum, I would have quit traditional school long long time ago.

 

People are in such a rush to grow up these days. I certainly wouldn't have wanted to be 15/16 years old in college. Hell I was barely mature enough to handle HS at that age. You don't need to be Doogie Howser. Average life expectancy is almost 80. It's not like we're done by age 30-35.

 

If my high school had not let me graduate early that is exactly what I would have done! As it was I just completed my last semester.

There is no ethical question here, simply do what will be the best for you in your judgment. Perhaps pass the GED before you drop high school (assuming that is allowed). That way your risk factor is basically 0.

 

That's a very good point. Why try to grow up so fast? It is not easy to be an adult, enjoy your young years as long as you can.

I wish I could know what I know now and somehow become 16 again. I wouldn't have made many of the choices I made in the past.

 

NO ethics involved. You do what's best for you.

HOWEVER, if you're going to have to work your way through college that high school degree may be important in a tight job market.

My son took half of his classes in a community college his jr/sr year of high school. They counted towards his high school (get a counselor's approval). The day he graduated he was already three semesters into his college education.

 

If you can afford and whatever it takes, then do it. I am regretted that I did not do it; but was only taking hard courses (ie: AP Computer Science BC, AP Government, AP Physics, AP Calculus BC, and etc. The requirement for high school graduation with advanced high school diploma was 24 credits (courses); I graduate with 34 credits (courses). I wasted my times in high school.

Therefore, I would recommend if you have the abilities to by pass high school for college. THEN DO IT WITHOU THINKING!

 

And I would've jumped on it, if I'd known I could. It depends on what you mean by "growing up." My last year of high school was a complete and utter joke. Our honors program was eliminated and there was no challenge to the classes my friends and I found ourselves in. We were bored out of our minds. It was so bad, we formed a club based on the college academic bowl idea, just to have something to do.

So what, exactly, were we going to miss had we skipped that and moved on to a level of education that actually kept us engaged and interested?

 

People like you are the exception. Sounds like you were ready to get out and would have done well. Didn't your city college offer any classes that a high school student could take?

For a lot of young people who are not ready to leave, just because it's possible doesn't mean they should skip out of high school. Sometimes skipping ahead is not as productive as you would expect but sometimes it is the perfect thing to do. Often only hindsight will give the definitive answer. And then it's, well...hindsight.

 

side bar: I grew up in Houston. I was in high school in the 80s, before the internet came along. In order to attend classes at a local college, I would've had to have some way of getting there, which I did not. (Even today, Houston's public transportation is rather a joke.) I'm so glad that young people today have so many more options.


I agree that skipping ahead is not for everyone. Honestly, I really didn't explain myself very well in that previous post.

I do not tie "growing up" and "education" together, except for on a fairly superficial basis. I have known very well-educated people in their 30s and beyond who I would never call "grown up" and I have known 14yos still learning pre-Algebra and how to write a 5-paragraph essay who were very much grown ups in their own right.

I understand, for efficiency if nothing else, we must assign ages to certain stages of life. Is every 16yo *really* ready to drive? No. You will find some kids younger than that who are, and some kids older than that who should not be getting behind the wheel. But because we cannot possibly evaluate every individual person well enough, we've decided 16 is a reasonable age to say, "Yes, this person, provided he passes the tests, should be allowed to operate a motor vehicle." Under the same thinking, we've designated 18 as some sort of magical age where a person is suddenly considered a grown-up, whether he actually is or not.

To me being "grown up" means making the decision to take responsibility for oneself, one's actions, and one's choices. It is acknowledging that mistakes will be made, but also owning up to them, apologizing for them when appropriate, and fixing them when possible. It is more about personal accountability and integrity, and a conscious effort to be more - to be a better person today than you were yesterday, than about where you happen to be in your educational journey.

Education starts the day you are born, and, hopefully, never stops. I don't think any student should be held back from pursuing a higher level of knowledge just because he is younger than the "average" student. If he's ready for it, let him move on.

Which is all to say:

1) I found the OP's wording curious - asking about the "ethics" of bypassing high school as opposed to just requesting opinions. It reminded me of a criticism homeschoolers sometimes get slapped with, that we are actually depriving other school children by not putting our own children with them. There is this idea that we should send our children to the local public school, no matter how bad it may be, because it's "only fair." In that frame, you could ask about the "ethics" of leaving a school early, but I don't *think* that's what the OP meant. As it would seem he/she is asking out of a wish to move on - not merely drop-out - I would say to him/her, go for it, if you genuinely feel you are ready. Just be sure you are.

2) I disagree that "people are in such a rush to grow up these days." If anything, I think the opposite is true. Once upon a time, the so-called "Peter Pan Syndrome" was something you generally only saw in the 2nd, 3rd, and so-on sons of the upper class, those young men who were well-funded but not under the same pressures as the first-born son to assume any sort of responsibilities. Now it feels almost like an epidemic raging through the middle-class. I'm certainly not advocating a return to a time where 10yos grew up too quickly as they spent 12 hours a day working in a factory, but I do think a good many late teens/20-somethings could use a bit of a kick in the pants.

And them's just my 2 (or more like 200) cents.

 

go and don't look back!

Look I have multiple degrees and never finished high school, heck I taught at University too.

I could have left highschool even earlier to go onto University and I wish I had, if a student wants it...let em try: nothing like failure as a lesson and nothing like success to boost oneself.

 

When in 9th grade, our twins were helping proofread one edition of Bear's Guide and, when they came to the high school chapter, said, "You mean, if we pass the GED we don't have to go to high school?" Well, yes. So they both took the GED at 15, and passed. One went right on to college. The other worked (and other stuff) for 3 years, then started college. Both graduated Phi Beta Kappa from San Francisco State University, and never had any regrets.

The only ethical issue for us would have been if we had encouraged them to do this, to save money or for other reasons, but we didn't.

Our older daughter hadn't planned to follow this path -- she actually liked high school -- but at the start of 11th grade, she was recruited heavily by various schools, based on her near-perfect PSAT scores, some of which said she could come right away, and not need to stay in high school. She agreed and left early in 11th grade (and subsequently graduated Phi Beta Kappa from the University of California, Berkeley).

So it worked great in our family . . . but clearly there are many other cases where the students in question could surely benefit from staying in, and completing, high school.

(PS: At that time, our near neighbors, the Colfaxes, made the news when their totally home schools son was admitted to Harvard, first time for Harvard. Three more Colfax sons followed that same path, all, apparently, quite successfully.)