Well here in the UK people can leave school at 16 and go on to college, although the law was changes recently so that you now have to be in some form of education up to the age of 18. Although, am I right in saying that in the US college and university refer to the same thing, whereas in Britain they are different stages of education?

I am myself in my last year of school and personally I cannot wait to move on to college. I think that if some people in America think themselves ready to go to college at 16 then why stop them, it seems to work OK over here.

My two pence.

Highschool is so full of crap that you probably should be graduating in two years instead of four.  If you tossed the bullshit, you'd have the reqs that fast easy.  The standardized tests are all a joke because the schools are a joke, if they gave real ones, they'd have a 90% failure rate for graduating seniors.  Most first year college students are taking prep classes these days.  You should never go into college and take precalc, or God forbid, algebra.

Just a bit.

This is all true, but from my experience (just a college freshman here, so I may or may not be hopelessly naive and if I am, be nice please) I could've gone to college at about 16 and done pretty well. I'm in a rather good college (UNC's generally regarded as the best bargain in state schools, especially when I start paying instate tuition), placed out of all the intro/remedial high school stuff and am doing work that's generally easier than I did in high school senior year (granted most high schools don't offer system level programming and computer graphics after AP compsci, but I went to one of the best high schools in the country). Anyway, I think I would've been ready from a knowledge standpoint after sophmore year, the only class I'm taking now that I would've had trouble with I placed out of with my AP cs test score, so I would've been in a different class. The english class is tought to a slightly higher standard than my high school english classes, but not much. In all honesty, the biggest problem I'm having is procrastination and not wanting to put in the extra effort to get top grades, and that's why I'm sitting at an A- average, not a lack of knowledge. I don't really think I'm qualified to speak on how well my high school career prepared me to learn, because I'm still getting taught how to learn like a college student (first year seminar has kind of held my hand, but oh well, it's a very fun class).

Some are never ready, and some are ready even earlier than 16. It really depends on the person, and the question is how to determine if a person is ready. To be honest, my work habits were even worse at home, at least now I have a good grasp on time and scheduling and am willing to apply myself when I need to, and I of all people didn't see that coming. The problem with a test is determining whether a person is capable of dealing with the work on their own and with the college environment, and I don't see much of a way to do that. One of the goalies on the hockey team isn't playing because he's busy trying not to get kicked out his first term in college, and I doubt his parents would've paid his bills if they thought that'd happen.

In the end, I'm kind of tempted to say go for it, especially if you just want a community college degree, but I also think it'd be awesome if at least precalc never had to be taught in college, so I'm torn on the idea.

The biggest difference between UK and US would be culture.  Over here, we're frickin babied until we leave high school, and many folks have a shock when they leave on their own and have to do things themselves (college or not).  If I'm not mistaken, most of you Europeans are raised to be more independent earlier on.  And due to liberal "they're so young and shouldn't be expected to do x' crap, it will probably only get worse.

I will say that the last two years of high school seem to be about the same as college, similar course material.  Of course, I took the AP/Honors route, so I had to, but most college prep curriculums probably do the same.

I was told by one girl that moved from Russia in the 8th grade that she went back in what they were learning by about 4 years when she came over.  I can't disagree, they stoped offering Algebra in the 8th grade my 8th grade year, and we keep pushing crap back.

I will say that ending after 10th grade will let the folks out with HS degrees that won't go any further, but 12th needs to be a continued milestone, unless we accelerate our education rate (which won't happen anytime soon).

However with that said the level of the "top talent" here in the US is as good or better than anywhere in the world. I personally scored a 1600 on my SAT's and that was before the test was devalued, twice. I went to the best engineering school on this planet (MIT) and although there were certainly a good share of foreign students easily 95% were from the US of A.

Things may have changed in the 29 years since I graduated but googling the stats of the incoming freshman class at MIT the number of US citizens/perm residents accepted out of applied is 1470/10344 or 14% of those that applied. For International students it's 119/3052 or about 4%. There's no doubt that the acceptance standards are the same for US and International students and if anything I believe that MIT will accept slightly lower performance from an international student simply to try and get the international presence higher.

In any case International students are 119/1589 or about 7.5% so that's probably a 50% increase since the days that I attended but still the overwhemling majority are home grown.

Yes I agree that there are brilliant people all over the world and that the US school system lags that of other countries, but don't fool yourself into thinking that the top US students are weak by any stretch of the imagination.

Check it out yourself at http://www.mitadmissions.org/topics/apply/admissions_statistics/.

As far as a world ranking of engineering schools here's the top 10

1 Massachusetts Institute of Technology USA
2 University of California, Berkeley USA
3 Indian Institutes of Technology India
4 Imperial College London UK
5 Stanford University USA
6 Cambridge University UK
7 Tokyo University Japan
8 National University of Singapore Singapore
9 California Institute of Technology USA
10 Carnegie Mellon University USA

http://www.universityportal.net/2007/09/world-university-ranking-of-engineering.html

As an 8th gerader getting ready for high school, I think that we should continue havng high school last for four years. How ever here is what I think they shoud do. I think that for kids who have an averege of one or more A's (or 100's or whatever your school is using) should have to take this test if they manage to do this during most of 10th grade and if they pass they should be able to graduate and go to college. Now as for the other kids they should have to go through their junior and seinor years. Now I usually get more than one A on my report cards so I keep this up until 10th grade I'll be able to go to college earlier. I am trying to get a job in game developement so I can work for Stardock. I'd love to work on Galciv 3.

Opps that was an accident.

Theres something else that u need to know and that is the usa doesnt hide the schores of the specail ed student we go right ahead and use there number with reverone else im makeing the averages.  while most other countrys hide and shune thos students and dony put thee scores in with the othetrs to make an average.

just look at japan.

Low or no expectations (drop the bar and push kids on through, who cares about actually passing these days?), zero responsibility (by *all* involved parties), and poor parenting are probably factors.

Honestly, if the kids were responsible and dedicated enough to prepare themselves (and honestly, given most freshman year courses, it wouldn't take much), I wouldn't see the problem with it. But with most schools these days seem more interested in self-esteem and trying to make everyone equal (drop everyone to the level of the lowest student) and such than actual academic performance, and the kids just not caring, I don't see it working out.

Quite frankly, the problem with American education is that we don't like to see anyone fail - so we lower the bar so far you have to dig a tunnel under it not to pass. And still some do. It's pathetic, really.

Both my sisters are teachers. The older works in inner-city Houston, the younger was in Las Vegas until recently. So when they say Bush's no child left behind bullshit was exactly that, they know what they're talking about. Frankly, there are significant portions of the population we NEED to leave behind.

I keep hearing about these terrible jobs we need to let Mexicans do for us because "Americans don't want those jobs." Personally, I think the prospect of spending the rest of your life picking lettuce should be a powerful inducement to actually learn something in school. Any person who gets into ninth grade with a second-grade reading level no longer deserves to have taxpayer money wasted on them. Yes, some of it may be language barriers or whatever; the vast majority are simply lazy fools. Even if the "system" is failing you, or your entire demographic group, that's no excuse. Some personal responsibility needs to be exercised, and by failing to force that upon them, we are all subsidizing failure.

I work in the chemistry department of a university. University policy is that each student must take at least two science classes to graduate, so we developed a chemistry course to meet the standard they set. I've seen the material they are teaching; I covered the same material in EIGHTH GRADE. And still people fail. The biology and physics departments are the same.

It's not just science; ever see someone break out a calculator to multiply something by 10? I do, on a daily basis. And these aren't even the people in the eighth-grade level class, these are nursing majors!

The university used to have a writing exam, to ensure at least a minimum of skill before someone gets a degree. Recently they decided the standard was so low it wasn't worth the money to administer, so they dropped it instead of raising the standard.

I would have to agree with American schools having incredibly low standards. Everything progresses so slowly in some misguided effort to allow deadbeats/leeches to keep up. I fail to see how a person needs to be fourteen to begin taking algebra and how someone can pass a course while only knowing 60% of the content. It all needs to be accelerated and toughened up, along with failing those who can't put any effort into school instead of dragging them along to dumben the remaining 3 years of high school. That way we'll at least pull up the bottom draggers and dump out the deadbeats who would otherwise disturb everyone else and waste taxpayer money.

Given your dyslexia, pointing out your errors is impolite at best, however, I believe the word you were looking for is deterred, not donated. I would assume you also meant suspicions rather than suppositions but that could easily be a typo, even without dyslexia contributing.

Apart from that, though, your post was at least as legible as your average senior in high school without accounting for dyslexia, so I'm not complaining-and I'd say your mother did a good job.