<p>I checked the general admission requirements for doctoral programs at a couple of top universities and neither lists a specific requirement that you have an undergraduate degree in hand. All the requirements--GREs, letters of recommendation--do not require a degree. So suppose in high school you finished the courses sufficient for an undergraduate major or you did this early in your college career, would a grad school consider your application?</p>
<p>I'm not saying this is any better or worse of an idea than a 14-year-old skipping high school, but is it technically possible or occasionally done?</p>
<p>I'm not even saying you have to be Saul Kripke, mathematician/philosopher, whose mother told him he couldn't teach at Harvard until he finished high school.</p>
<p>In very rare instances people are admitted directly to graduate programs without ever taking a single undergraduate course. I have even met people who did that. It is a bit more common (but still extremely rare) for people to begin grad programs without completing an undergrad degree that they started. Graduate schools (and often individual departments) set their own policies about this. I expect they leave the loop-holes open so that they can accommodate those rare individuals with unique qualifications who they believe to be fully prepared for the rigors of graduate level work who have not gone through the normal system.</p>
<p>OTOH, there are some students who acquire lots of college credits in hs, and fly through college.</p>
<p>My own stepfather, who graduated from Columbia, then got his graduate degree (MBA?) also from Columbia, and was “out” working in the business world by age 21.</p>
<p>From Wiki</p>
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<p>That’s putting MIT in its place!</p>
<p>If one demonstrated an exceedingly great talent/genius in a given field, certainly though this is extremely rare. One HS classmate was admitted directly into a math PhD program straight from HS…and as I recall…Jane Goodall ended up at a PhD program despite having never having done undergrad beforehand.</p>
<p>I read an article once, and this was some time ago but I do remember this part, in which they interviewed a woman who was attending medical school despite not having a Bachelors degree. The details are fuzzy but I believe she had dropped out of college, gone back and taken pre-med classes on her own and then was admitted to med school that way. </p>
<p>In some states you can take the Bar exam to become a lawyer without having gone to law school.</p>
<p>I just remembered I had a graduate school advisor who had dropped out of high school–during the Depression–and had gained admittance to Berkeley grad school years later on the basis of left experience and unmatriculated college courses.</p>
<p>It’s theoretically possible. Stephen Wolfram dropped out of Eton before finishing his high school studies and instead went to college at Oxford. He then similarly dropped out of Oxford without finishing and instead went into the PhD program at Caltech, where he finally completed a program and earned a degree. His PhD was the first and only diploma he ever got.</p>
<p>However, the vast majority of us merely smart people, who are not geniuses, will not succeed on this educational path. We need the intermediate degrees. So I recommend that if you want a graduate degree you go the traditional route and go to college first. The grad school may well not recognize that you are the next Stephen Wolfram and automatically reject your application for want of the bachelors degree.</p>
<p>I have a friend who had dropped out of college and many years later decided he needed the credentials for his job. The college program he applied to looked at his work experience and said, why don’t you just apply to our master’s program - so he did.</p>
<p>Any time Bill Gates says he wants an MBA, I’m sure there will be plenty of schools that will admit him, even if he didn’t graduate from Harvard.</p>
<p>I know all of my programs had a requirement you needed to finish your undergrad degree prior to starting on your grad degree. I imagine they would make exceptions for very untraditional students, but I wouldn’t plan on it happening.</p>
<p>Yes I have a (mature) friend working on an MBA at Kellogg with no BA or BS but with 20+ years experience running their own company with 50+ employees. I think the operative word here is if you lack years of experiencing working in the field related to your masters you might have a problem, but work can trump degrees in many ways.</p>
<p>I just remembered I have another friend who who is working on a doctorate but has no undergrad.</p>
<p>Yup. It is rare, though.</p>
<p>A college degree has never been required for medical or dental school although the majority of students do have the bachelor’s degree first. Three years of college are required. Some students are provisionally admitted as college freshmen with the intention of starting medical school in 3 years if they keep their grades up. These are professional, not grad schools as in going for the MS or PhD. There are always going to be those rare individuals who are exceptionally gifted who get the college knowledge base without needing to take the courses needed for a college bachelor’s degree. Plus the examples where the field, such as a business one, allows for years of real life experience. In life there is most often that rare exception to hard and fast rules.</p>