Decision 2012

No, not the election, which I will try to write about tomorrow, but a big decision for Munchkin that she has to make after she gets back from France in a couple of weeks.

First, some back story, which I have written about before but which you may not recall. When Munchkin moved here, she repeated fourth grade. She was coming from a not-great public school to a super-advanced private school and was also dealing with the loss of her second parent, moving to a new city, etc. It seemed like an awful lot to throw at a kid who might also be trying to catch up in school, so the administrators and I agreed that it made sense for her to just do fourth grade a second time. That made her one of the oldest kids in her class, but that seemed OK.

In hindsight, it was unnecessary. Academically, she thrived from day one, and she has always been socially much more developed than her classmates. Most of her best friends have always been older than her, although she has plenty of friends in her own class, too. So, starting a couple of years ago, her counselors began to ask if she wanted to skip a grade to get back on to her original schedule. And while it always seemed intriguing, she never officially committed to it...but always sort of left the option open.

She did this by doubling up subjects at times...so, for example in seventh grade, she would take both seventh and eighth grade English. Then in eighth grade, she would take ninth grade English, along with eighth and ninth grade Math, etc. Combined with her two languages, that made for a very heavy workload...but she still tore through it with very, very few marks below an A. I think she has had like three A-'s.

Which gets her to now...her sophomore year of high school. She now has to decide definitively whether she wants to graduate in 2013 or 2014. To finish next year, she would need to take two double classes, which would get her through her Senior year in everything she needs to. But if she wants to continue with the grade she has always been in, she would end up taking a handful of college-level classes that would probably get her done with some of her credits when she finally starts college.

It is completely up to her...she already basically knows where she wants to go to college and should have no trouble getting in. She already took the PSAT last fall (and killed it, of course) and would need to register for the Spring SAT by sometime in April, I think. So, I think that my first inclination is that she should do it, and that I should immediately prepare for the absolutely ridiculous idea that I will have a SENIOR IN HIGH SCHOOL in the house, and then very shortly a college student. But, she loves school, and loves her friends and she may just not feel the need to rush anything.

There are a couple of social factors, too - one that pulls her towards 2014, and one towards 2013. First, her best friend is in her class, and this would mean skipping ahead and graduating a year ahead of her. Given the timing of the decision, I am not sure that Munchkin wants to do that (even if her friend should be completely better by then). Second, there is the ever-present Frenchie factor...he will finish high school in 2013 and I would be pretty surprised if he didn't come to college in the States. I will have much more on this later on, but the appeal of being on the same timeline as him has to be appealing as well.

So, I don't really know what she will decide. I can be pretty sure that she will sit down at least me and Smoking Hot Roommate, and probably Big Sis and The Boy and Papa Bear as well, and talk about it in great detail. That is how she makes big decisions...she assembles her advisers and talks our ears off:-)