S2 is a junior, and after talking to his guidance counselor and maxing out high school offerings, decided to apply to colleges this fall. He applied to 9 schools for computer science. 3 schools have now called him and said they do not consider applications from juniors, regardless of grades, test scores, etc. And, they are dragging their feet to refund the application fee. Luckily, one of his top choices accepted him, in their honors college, with $10k per year merit aid.
Why wouldn’t a school at least consider a junior applicant?
Has anyone ever had a good or bad experience with a junior applying?
My D was originally looking to do a program where senior year of HS is also the freshman year of college n ai special combined program. She would have had to come back to HS after her freshman year of college, present her senior project and actually graduate. It’s something that a previous grad did successfully, and that some colleges offer. But at the principal’s suggestion, she simply skipped junior year and began this fall as a senior. Her school is non-traditional, so the option of extra AP’s and the like were not on the table. But with 2 online courses, she had more than enough credits, was very successful in school and quite mature.
She applied to 10 schools and got into all of them, most with merit and/or honors college acceptance. All but one, though, is an HBCU, or Historically Black College. So the target was very specific, and they all have a long history of admitting non-traditional students. Only one called to verify whether she was a junior or not, and it gave us one of the more generous awards when it admitted her.
Maybe moving up to senior status would have gotten your son more offers? But it’s all good as he’s in and has merit. It’s not for everyone, but this was exactly right for our D. Good luck to your son.