Of all the Cullens, for some reason it tickles me to imagine Jasper sitting down to write essays and do diorsmas for school. He's just seen too much, did too much compared to all of them to have an even somewhat reasonable masquerade as a teenager. You mean the man with the thousand yard stare is 16 years old? Okay. Out of all of them, his time playing pretend is the hardest to imagine. From breaking heads off to making a Styrofoam model of a animal nucleus. Hahah

Oh I agree. He's the one where I think about it for two seconds it's just so utterly absurd he's in school. And it's not even about his shaky self-control, it's that this guy is the oldest after Carlisle, is 19/20 years old physically, and spent 90 years in endless vampire war and now he's subjected to writing another essay on The Great Gatsby? How is that not hugely humiliating and completely pointless?

His dates vary between the books and the guide, but he is 19-20ish and Emmett is 20 and both are too old for high school. There's also 6'3" and 6'5". I mean on her very first day Bella sees them and says they look more like teachers than students, so the whole "blending in" excuse completely falls apart.

Is this supposed to be some kind of punishment or atonement for him? Edward calls high school purgatory, which is a place where you work off your sins and are purified before being allowed into heaven. But how does physically 20-years-old ex-vampire-warlord Jasper atone for anything by graphing parabolas?

Or is it really just like "well Alice looks the part and wants (?) to go to high school and I want to be where Alice is?"

Or did SM not think about this for two seconds? The story would not change AT ALL if Edward and Alice, as the two youngest-looking (I think Alice is technically older than Rosalie but her small stature makes her pass for younger) were the only ones in high school. Jasper's presence at school doesn't matter, neither do Emmett's or Rosalie's.

It's just such a bizarre thing to think about. What a strange use of his eternal life. What would Maria think to see him sitting in school?