Anyone here graduate highschool early and start Comunity College?

I dropped out of high school, at 16, got my GED within three months and started college the same year. (would have been my senior year of high school)
To drop out of high school, in my state, you have to have a full time job. So, I had to work 40 hours a week, and was going to school full time. I’d go to work at 5am, leave work to go to school, then go back to work. It was very, very difficult. But, I did do well with that for a while.
For my own personal reasons, I screwed up, but if your brother has his head on straight, and your family keeps encouraging him…I’m sure he could do it.
I do wish I had never dropped out of high school, it made things much harder for me. No one cares, as you get older, if you have your GED or high school diploma though.
To enter community college, you don’t need to take your SATs, you take the entrance exams, and they place you. You can then transfer to a University, without SATs.
It’s a huge decision, and not one he should make spur of the moment. He has to know it will be hard, but he’ll have to keep working if he wants to get anywhere in life.

I’ll just say this: my brother was lucky to graduate from high school and he now attends the local community college. He is no more ressponsible or likely to work hard than he was in high school. It’s not going to necesarily make your brother any more dependable.

I took the GED my junior year of high school and went to a community college. I did not learn any responsibility. I stopped going to class mid-semester because I was bored with the pace of the classes (same reason I left high school) and wasted my dad’s money. I didn’t take school seriously until a few years later when I was paying for it out of my own pocket, and now that I’m in the military and they are paying for. It is still slow paced and frequently boring, but I force myself to at least complete it now.

I don’t think learning responsibility is a good reason to drop out of school. It’s more responsible and probably a more valuable lesson to learn to just stay with something and finish it.

If he’s bored because he’s bright, and underachieving because he’s in classes that aren’t challenging him, switching to community college might be a good solution. If he finds the classes interesting, he will probably be more motivated to get to them and responsible enough to keep up.

If he’s bored because he’s apathetic, and underachieving because he can’t be bothered to work, switching to community college won’t accomplish anything. He won’t magically learn to be responsible simply because the penalties for not being responsible have changed from one thing he doesn’t care about to another thing he doesn’t care about.

You have to look at the why of the situation and not only the what.

A lot of self discipline is needed in college, i.e. get to class on time without parents to push you, etc. I graduated & started college at 16, but it was a lot of responsibility.

If he is a slacker now, it may be better for him to stay where he is. It would be bad if he dropped out and then did not finish a GED.

My brother and my sister’s best friend both graduated early and started college. One community college, the other a University. Both before they were 18 years of age. My brother actually got his GED and my sister’s best friend actually graduated early. She just graduated. And my brother is doing quite well.

I think it would be a great idea for your brother to do this. Because my lil brother did the same thing. LOL. And it worked out well for him. The thing is that college provides a completely different atmosphere than high school. No drama. No doing your work inside of class. Complete Independence. Your success and failure depend solely on yourself. And you get to choose your classes. It is perfect for those who hate high school but have the intellect to keep going further in education. And getting a GED is a relatively simple thing to do. I know several people who got their GED. My lil brother got his in like 2–3 months, it was so freaking quick.

Getting a GED is simple because they have these pretests. You pretest and find out your scores then you know what you need to study before you actually test. Getting into community college is very easy because they accept everyone and their application process is so simple. The most complicated part would be filling out the FAFSA (financial assistance form). In my state all my brother had to do was get this form from his school saying they were releasing him or something of that nature since he was under age 18.

I think that getting a GED is a good choice even if he doesn’t go into community college afterwards. Only because so many kids now are dropping out of high school. If you think it is possible he will drop out of high school if he doesn’t get it over with SOON then a GED is a good choice. But if you think he can stick with it and graduate high school some more consideration may be due. My lil brother would have had to make up some serious credits during summer school etc.. to graduate high school. So getting his GED was a practical choice.

I am currently enrolled as a freshman in an early college high school, which is essentially getting an AA degree (or college credits) and a high school diploma all in 4 years. I like it, because it allows you to take college classed essentially for free, just paying a health fee. They even pay for your books.

So in a sense, yes.

@dverhey That sounds like a great program. Is it all college classes?

My daughter did dual enrollment the first semester of her senior year—9 hours college, 4 classes high school, and then dropped out of high school the second semester of high school and took 18 hours at college. She never did graduate from high school, or get a GED. No one has ever asked.

@RedPowerLady: It really depends. You still need to finish all of your high school, it’s just essentially getting your high school in 2 years. I will be lucky enough to be out of all of my high school classes by my junior year.

@dverhey Thanx for the information. I know I would have loved to finish the high school section in two years. But probably would have ended up with three. LOL

I graduated in December and started college in January. I was able to get prereqs out of the way. But I lost out on the last half of senior year. Trade off.

My best friend started college classes at 15. Now he’s 20 and he’s still attending the same community college, although he’ll be finished this semester. Point is, if your brother is grown up and responsible and doesn’t start hanging around with theatre kids, he will excel. If he falls into the trap, he might get stuck for a while. I heard there was one guy who attended a 2-year college for almost 8 years, working on ONE Associate’s. It’s all in how seroius your brother is about his education.

has he thought about online school? i dont like the thought of it that much and i would never have done it but i knew a lot of people who did and they liked it. eh.