Does anyone have any knowledge on whether a junior wants to take early release for his senior year? Does it reflect badly when admissions reviews their schedule and coursework? Especially if my son might apply test optional next year? We are in a debate about this as I think it’s a bad decision but he, of course, wants to be able to leave early. (Hopefully they are in school next year 
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The person to ask is the school guidance counselor to see if it will impact their assessment of your son’s course rigor.
At some schools every senior does delayed start or early release, at others, no one takes a free period. Totally depends on the school.
Agree to get GC’s opinion. How many core academic courses will he be taking senior year?
Thank you! Unfortunately, he doesn’t have a guidance counselor right now and they aren’t very helpful anyway. My daughter is graduating this year and did not take any early release periods. My son, however, is a different kid, more social.
But he didn’t perform as well academically due to having surgery last year and then our school did not count grades the 2nd semester which he had straight As. So he ended up with just his first semester grades: A-, A, B- and C+. The B-and C+ we’re in honors classes though. But it brought his GPA down a lot. 9th uw- 3.9, 10th uw- 3.3, Probably on target this year to finish with a weighted GPA of 4.1 and uw of 3.6-3.7.
We are on a block schedule with 4 classes a marking period. He has taken 3 AP classes already (1 just got credit for a pass last year and didn’t get the AP privileges) and 8 honors.
Thanks!!
My son has 2 early outs this year for his senior year. He is on an 8 class block system, so he is taking 6 classes total. It hasn’t affected his applications in a negative way at all in my opinion, because the 6 classes he is taking are made up of AP and college prep coursework. So I think as long as he is taking challenging classes next year, an early out shouldn’t be a huge deal. However, if he needs to get his gpa up, then he probably shouldn’t.
I would be more concerned about getting his grades back up and making sure colleges see that sophomore year was a fluke because of the surgery. The early release may give him more time to focus on his academics if he’s taking rigorous courses.
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Thanks for everyone’s feedback! It’s definitely a tough call. He’s trying to get his grades up but not doing as well as he wants to, taking the challenging classes virtually. He does much better with in-person teaching especially the AP economics. I’m not sure when they will get back into the classroom. He’s getting very bored and losing interest.
My daughter is a different learner and prefers this way of working. Everyone is different!
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As long he takes 3 classes each block (6 total), including Math, social science, science, English, and foreign language*, he’s fine.
Although I would take late arrival (/late start) rather than early release because teenagers lack proper sleep.
(Unless he reached level 3 or 4 this year already, in which case he can instead take any academic elective that suits him).