<p>I have decided to apply to some colleges this fall in the hopes of being able to drop out or graduate early from high school and jump straight to college. (I don't have my heart set on this, but I feel that I will regret it if I don't at least try.)</p>
<p>I know several teachers with whom I am close and who could write great letters of recommendation. My extracurriculars are good, and my GPA is a 3.8. I got an 1870 on the SAT in 8th grade and a 219 on the PSAT last year, and I will be taking the PSAT again next week. However, I won't have any recent SAT or ACT grades nor any subject tests, and 1870 isn't that great of a score (correct me if I'm wrong).</p>
<p>I will need lots of aid, but I don't think I will qualify for much need-based. I am from western NY and my parents would like me to stay within day-trip distance, but this is not an absolute requirement for me. I am thinking about applying to CCNY, UB, UR, RIT, CWRU, Williams, Harvard, Yale, Princeton, McGill, and maybe Hampshire, Binghamton, and/or Stony Brook. I would like to study math and/or physics.</p>
<p>So, here are my questions:
- Do I have enough of a chance that this is worth the application fees?
- Are the schools I listed good choices? Are there others I should consider?
- I have significant post-AP math knowledge. Should I talk to professors about this and see if they can help?
- Should I include an extra essay or cover letter explaining why I am trying to leave high school early?</p>
<p>Do a search about leaving school early here on this site. The fact is many viable candidates to very competitive schools are eligible to graduate early. The real question is for what reason. have you exhausted the offerings at your HS? Are you taking dual enrollment classes at the nearby college because your HS classes are no longer challenging? Are you clearly one of the most accomplished scholars in your HS? Without any recent SAT/ACT, it’s impossible to give clear advice. Taking the October PSAT will NOT get you in line with applying for Fall 2014 admissions. If this is a serious venture, then you need to have either SAT or ACT done very soon – check the deadlines of schools you’re thinking of applying to.</p>
<p>Do kids graduate early and get into competitive programs? It does happen. But the circumstances need to be extremely unique. If need be, have your GC call some of the admissions offices of some of the less-competitive schools on your list.</p>
<p>If you do need a lot of aid, you better take your time to improve your GPA and test scores. You are likely to get National merit since you had 219 already as sophomore. For that, you will have to go through the senior year.
For the top schools on your list, I don’t think you would have much chance without a good score and GPA.</p>
<p>You’ll have to take the SAT or ACT and for some of those schools you’ll need subject tests. You can take the subject tests 12/7 and ACT 12/14. That isn’t too late for most schools. The difficulty is that you won’t be able to judge your strength as an applicant in advance of applying as most apps are due 1/1. The 12/7 scores are released 12/23 and 12/14 released 12/30. By then you will be almost done with apps.Though if the scores are very bad, you can wait to see scores before pressing ‘send’ to save money on apps that likely to be rejected.</p>
<p>Tomorrow is the deadline to sign up for 11/2 SAT. You have to pay extra for late registration, but it would be worth it to get scores in time to help you decide where you are a viable candidate.</p>
<p>My D had a classmate who graduated a year early and went to McGill.He had everything in order. 4.0/35, so it was simple. However he decided he hated it and came home after a semester to practice his music and prepare for auditions to apply for colleges again and went to NEC this fall. He really wanted to get out of the HS environment, escape, just didn’t want to be there anymore. But hadn’t though what he did want to do. Course, that happens to a lot of HS seniors as well, but it is even more likely when you are a year younger. It’s good to have some direction, spend some time thinking about why you are doing this. I know other kids who graduated early and went to community college for a year, and then on to 4-year college the following year, though that took them out of running for the freshman scholarships, but it was the right thing for them anyway. There are lots of paths that work. But if you need scholarships, you have to position yourself to get them. How are you doing this year? Will your GPA go up?</p>
<p>But you really can’t apply with an 1840 to the chunk of schools in the middle of your list at least. Not sure about the others. You might be able to apply, but probably won’t get merit aid if accepted.</p>
<p>Unless that ‘significant post-AP math’ means that you are very unusual. Do you have national competition ranking? Are you past DiffEq? Is your SAT score 800 math but low CR/W? Even so, you should take the tests.</p>
<p>Also, I don’t know if an 8th grade score would even be accepted. Not sure about this. You can check with a couple of universities to see, or maybe someone here knows the answer. Can kids send 8th grade scores? Would it be considered like a 9th grade score instead if graduating a year early?</p>
<p>Actually just found this:
[SAT</a> - Special Circumstances - Sunday Testing and more](<a href=“The SAT – SAT Suite | College Board”>Additional SAT Registration Options – SAT Suite)
If you tested in 8th grade or below, your score was removed from your file at the end of academic year unless you requested that they keep it. Did you?</p>
<p>Also, make sure the college you applied do not have high school graduation requirement. Or if you can fulfill the HS graduation requirement in junior. Otherwise, you have to wait till senior.</p>
<p>Plenty of juniors take the SAT and ACT, so no worries about taking them this year. It’ll look like you are on top of things if you decide to stay in high school through senior year. </p>
<p>You may want to look for colleges that take juniors (without graduating early). Google “early entrance colleges”. The two I know are Bard at St. Simon’s Rock and The Clarkson School at Clarkson University. Some universities do not take early entrance students (e.g., you need to actually graduate and have the high school diploma).</p>