Yesterday I posted about my 19-year-old daughter who just completed her BA. I want to emphasize that this is very doable for most motivated students. That is, anyone who can plunge into a junior/senior high school experience of maxing out on AP courses and cramming for the SAT is more than capable of graduating from college early. It’s just a matter of understanding the options available and making choices that allow for maximum learning rather than maximum hoop jumping.
And just so you know, there are some students who are really upping the ante. Now, this isn’t about competition. The point is to get the best education for each student, and that means disregarding the old rules about the time it takes to graduate and moving forward in a way that encourages each student to go deeper whenever they are ready to do so.
And so, I was delighted to read this story about a 19-year-old student, Jonathon Singh, who just earned his master’s degree at Thunderbird in Arizona. How did he do that? He skipped high school.
Not every student can skip high school–my youngest daughter did and there are other stories in my book about this option. Jonathon managed to surge ahead because he had a savvy mentor–his mom, who saw that he was already bored in middle school despite taking the most challenging courses available to him. So, she encouraged him to take the ACT. Well, he did very well. So well, in fact, that he was allowed to skip high school! (Other Bold Schoolers choose to take the GED and can then slide into community college–and a subsequent four-year university–without ever taking the SAT or ACT.)
Jonathon made the most basic Bold School move–he looked for ways to go deeper faster. In his case, he entered community college at 14, and after getting a certain number of credits there, he transferred to a four-year university (Arizona State University). After graduation, he headed to Thunderbird, where he became the youngest graduate ever and the proud recipient of a master’s of science in global management.
But here’s the part I love most: both Jonathon and his mother state that he is not a genius or super-nerd–in fact, they say that what allowed him to follow this accelerated path was his “curiosity about the world” and willingness to try something different.
YES, YES, YES! This is the key, and as I emphasize in my book, Bold Schoolers are simply open to the idea of moving forward and they do so based on their curiosity and internal motivation rather than a particularly high IQ.
Once Jonathon entered Thunderbird, he was surrounded by students from many countries, and that really added to his ability to understand and communicate other perspectives. This global grounding will allow him to do well in his chosen role as a corporate political-risk consultant–or anything else, for that matter.
In terms of education design, I’d say that spending significant time abroad would have further contributed to Jonathon’s development, and that engaging in some out-of-the-classroom learning between college graduation and entering a master’s program would have given him even more of an advantage. (A separate article alluded to the fact that he had traveled abroad with his family, so perhaps this is part of the picture already.) But what matters is that he proceeded on his path and got the most out of each chosen opportunity.
In another article about Jonathon, he describes what allowed him to be successful as a young college student: “I learned to listen to others.” It’s definitely a challenge being a much younger student, but it’s also a tremendous opportunity for growth.
To those parents who moan, “Aw, the poor kid never had a chance to experience high school! What a shame!”–I’m guessing that Jonathon would just smile and say something like, “It worked out just fine for me.” (That’s a standard Bold Schooler response, by the way!)
And while it’s clear that I’m not one to worship at the SAT/ACT altar (the “Skip the SAT” phrase in my subtitle is a good hint), there are cases in which it’s advantageous to take one of these tests. Jonathon’s case shows how the test can be used successfully as a way to show learning (and the ACT is a much better test for that) in order to skip ahead.
Will we be seeing more students who graduate from college early? Absolutely. But don’t expect them to be nerdy geniuses with no social skills. (That’s an Old School concept.)
**The kids who are willing to step away from high school (or skip it completely) are in love with learning rather than the juvenile social scene their peers embrace (and their parents promote.)
**They aren’t geniuses–they’re just inspired and ready to learn in a setting that features higher-level discussions and a look at greater possibilities than running for student body president or competing on the soccer field.
**They’re not super serious–they just prefer to have fun with those who think about the same things they do.
**They have a sense of themselves and their place in the world, and they–and their parents–recognize that sitting through extra years of high school is likely to deaden rather than develop their skills.
There are many high schools that offer dual enrollment programs and some–like those in New Hampshire using the Tough Choices or Tough Times model–will allow students to graduate at 16 in order to dive into higher level learning. Many industrialized countries around the world have systems that allow their students to enter college early, and one of the reasons we are falling behind in the percentage of students who graduate from college is that our model requires more time. This ensures that more kids will burn out before graduating and more parents will blow through their resources trying to keep their kids on track to graduate.
It’s good to know there’s another option–and that it can work beautifully for students and parents ready to embrace a whole new approach to education.
Congratulations, Jonathon!
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