When should we start high school?

[howiecram]

Our girl will almost certainly graduate early, at the same time as her brother, who's almost exactly 12 months older. It was not part of a plan, it's the way things sort of happened, by way of decisions we made that did not have anything to do with graduation goals. One difference with Christine's daughter is that my girl is in the opposite birthday situation, she's "old" for her grade - where I come from, she'd be in the next grade because the cutoff is December 31. So for her, graduating "early" means she will turn 18 in the late fall of her first year in college, which is not an unthinkable situation.
I said at the beginning "almost certainly" because as homeschoolers we have the luxury of complete control over this particular aspect... also known as "kicking the can down the road" 🙂 There is no need to decide at any point in advance "I/You will graduate early", things can be left fluid, flexible, one just waits and sees, what's the point of feeling the pressure years in advance... Yes, there is the matter of high school record keeping, but if you decided to start that in what should be her 8th grade, it could even be accomplished in a way that she's not even aware of what you're doing. Again, you can keep it fluid and flexible, and consider it practice for yourself as well, using 8th to start keeping records the way you'd like for high school - but with no declared, official graduation goals.

YEs, I appreciate that and do plan to start the official record keeping in that "8th grade" year. I like Jen's view above with age vs grade. I'll keep a close eye on credits, etc and plan to be slightly flexible. There is a slight financial advantage to graduating at 17 as there is financial aid available at the Jr. College, but you have to graduate, was my understanding. If we keep on the track we originally planned, we'll also have 3 high schoolers one year. (realizing that college is more expensive than high school...but we do plan to have kids pay for some of their college)

[bean]

We had dd do 8th grade twice but kept good records (she had health problems in 8th but had been grade-skipped when she started school). As we approached 11th grade, it became apparent it she was ready for the next thing, so she applied to colleges as an 11th grader. We sent subject transcripts. It was fine and she got in everywhere she applied. The earlier graduation did matter in the end. She choose the smaller (and safer) of the schools she had narrowed her choices down to. The financial situation was similar at 17 vs 18, but because she was getting beyond the DE credits she would be able to transfer for engineering, she would have lost a year if she stayed home and most of her friends have graduated already. She's also our last kid at home and she'll be geographically closer to her siblings at college.