11-yr-old’s Ultimate Goal: phd Theoretical Mathematics

[TorsMama]

Texas does offer free dual enrollment at many of their colleges.  I don't keep lists, but if you're on the Facebook group, use the search to pan back a bit- there are long threads of parents swapping names of free DE colleges.

I don't think you're going to like my answer, especially since homeschooling for college credit is *literally* what I write about all day long- but if he is gifted, then your focus could shift away from accumulating credit and toward feeding his appetite.  There was a fantastic blog done by a young man (not 11 - probably 20's) who did a DIY style computer science "degree" from MIT using MOOCs.  He journaled his progress on youtube- it's super interesting.  
In my opinion, your son's talent and gifts are worth nurturing - I'm a big fan of letting kids develop obsessions.  If he's doing precal now, he's almost at the top high school math, so in reality, he'll be able to test out of math now.... but to what end?  He doesn't want to be DONE with math, he probably wants to go DEEP with it- the opposite of degree planning.  Unless your goal is to get him out of school and into work, there is no benefit to rushing toward the END of his education, I'd say he's probably entering the best years of his life!

I found it- Scott Young.  Google him.  Your son could do his homeschooling curriculum that way.  https://www.scotthyoung.com/blog/myproje...allenge-2/

-No free or even cheap dual credit where we are. Its $300-500/ class (plus other fees) We could do online at DCCA after he turns 13/14 for $270ish/year, or online at Lone Star for $74-$100/ class (plus other fees).. but those look like they wont transfer to UT Tyler based on the college course numbers. However, I am looking more into it. Though he doesnt WANT to do online dual credit right now.. woukd vastly prefer in person. ??‍♀️

-His appetite is being fed as much as I can. I am not trying to replace his education with credits. He is starting the Classical Conversation Challenge program in the fall and he always goes as deep as he wants into interest subjects. He is used to exploring things that aren't even officially a class in his homeschool, like quantum objects and number theory. He doesn't want to test out of math and indeed it appears he could not test out of anything math related on his degree program if he went with UT but maybe Calc 1. However, he DOES NOT want to have to take collegehistory, government, english, lit, and social sciences at college. He WANTS to test out if those as much as possible and I fully agree with him esp. social sciences, Id prefer to have my biased on those at home, lol. 

-Again, its HIS goals not mine. I am following his lead. He does no want to spend his college years in basic courses. 


Forgive my typos. My ipad has keyboard issues.

My opinion here is worth exactly what you paid for it  
I'm trying to figure out excatly what kind of help you're looking for - many people here know a lot about certain things, I'm sure you can get answers, I'm just not sure of the question.

If the question is "can he test out of gen eds using CLEP" then yes.  His target college will have a list that you can look at now for reference, but check back when he's closer to enrolling to be sure there haven't been any major changes.

If the question is "can he get into a phd program with a degree from the big 3" no one knows the answer- but that's true no matter where he gets his undergrad. TESU checks a lot of boxes, but he's too young to attend TESU, so you'd have to use one of the other 2 if you really want to do degree planning now instead of later.  I'm having a hard time with how to help on this one because you said you only want him to graduate 1 year early, so he has 6 years to kill.  That's a really really long time from now.  It only takes about 2 years for anyone here to earn a BA from scratch, so my suggestion about feeding his appetite wasn't a criticism, it was a suggestion on how to fill the huge amount of time you have.

It is my opinion not to degree plan until you're ready to pull the trigger on a degree.  In the mean time, just do school.

No, I vastly appreciate your opnions. Every oppinion on here has helped me. I didn't see it as a criticism; sorry sometimes my writing may come across as curt; its not meant to be. I simply want to help him reach the goals and desires he wants in the best manner possible. I know TESU won’t accept under 18, but my original thought was if he got his degree there, he could fulfill all the requirements via homeschool, dual credit, whatever, before 18, thrn apply after his birthday, take the capstone course, and graduate. ??‍♀️ But they have less math requirements than most mathdegrees and its a BA not a BS.. I don't want graduate schools to think he did not take every required course. Plus I am realixing it will be more expensive that way than to try and get all his heneral stauff out of the way and go as deep as possible then graduate him at 17 or wven 16 maybe (he has a late April birthday) and then he can hopefully start his last higher level courses with merit freshman scholarships but only have two years or so left before je gets his BS. ??‍♀️ He does have plenty of other things to do in middle/high school not just earning credits. I mean.. if he can earn even 1 years worth of credits early, hooray, right?

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So if he graduated the month after turning 17, he has five years left. If he graduated at 16, only four years left. That gives us time to more leisurely work through hopefully all his gen ed credits while enjoying going deep on other homeschool subjects and working on skill sets too.