[kochbeck]

I was in an early entrance program to U of North Texas back when highly-organized early entrance was a (very) newfangled creation. If you qualify for a large, on-campus early entrance program with plenty of kids your own age, you ought to go for it. If you Google for early entrance college, you'll find plenty of information.

The criteria for acceptance after 20-odd years of development of these programs correlates surprisingly well with whether or not someone your age ought to be in a more adult, independent setting. Thus, if you are accepted, that's a pretty good indicator that you're ready to go to the next level. If you aren't accepted, then you're probably not.

Having said that, you say that 70% of high school is spent pleasing other people and performing tasks of rote memorization that you don't think you'll ever use again. I have terrible news for you: 90% of most employment is about pleasing other people and rote memorization. Often the rote memorization is about memorizing the things that please other people so you can plan on doing them over and over again. In technical terms, it's called satisficing behavior. In real terms, it's why people demand to get paid to do their jobs.

Seriously though, early entrance. If you don't like high school and you can make it into something else, go for it. Go be with kids like you who want to do bigger things sooner. If it's appropriate for you, it's worth doing.