[Condorman]

The high school I went to had (and maybe still does) a pretty good system. The standard 9th grade science class was Physical Sciences, which was essentially an intro course. The next three years focused on Biology, Chemistry, and Physics, in that order.

However, the more advanced incoming freshmen were given the option to skip the intro course, and jump into biology a year early. This allowed them to choose one of the three Advanced Placement science courses in chemistry, biology or physics for their senior year science class. At the end of the senior year, they could take the AP test for that subject. Colleges award credit hours (treated as tranferrable credits) for some of the core classes depending on how the students score on AP tests.

Of course, the high school administrators used all kinds of scare tactics (my parents even had to sign some kind of waiver) in order to discourage the parents from accelerating their kids.

[longshadow]

Of course, the high school administrators used all kinds of scare tactics (my parents even had to sign some kind of waiver) in order to discourage the parents from accelerating their kids.

Indeed; the High School advisor told my parents it would be IMPOSSIBLE for me to take Physics as a freshman -- it took the intervention of the Physics teacher personally to arrange it. The advisor was convinced I was going to flunk.

By mid-year, I had an "A" in the course.