<p>Lots of kids in this area are earning enough dual-enrollment credits in high school (through the local community college) to enter college as juniors, and are then able to earn a college degree in just two years.</p>
<p>Does anyone know how this impacts these students' medical school or law school applications? Is earning a college degree in just two years on campus a good thing if your ultimate goal is med or law school?</p>
<p>It shouldn't have any particular impact at all on law school admission. For medical school admission, one key idea is to make sure to have the prerequisite courses for medical school admission carefully planned out by checking medical school admission requirements.</p>
<p>I would suggest re-posting your question in the pre-med forum. </p>
<p>There are several current medical students (BigRedMed/Norcal/BlueDevilMike) there that are willing to answer questions and seem very knowledgeable about the process, and what is or is not recommended for medical school hopefuls. I have seen several responses to other posts where they say that graduating in 3 years (never seen 2 mentioned) is not recommended for medical school. Also that the pre reqs (biology/physics/inorganic chem/organic chem etc) are better taken in a 4 year college rather than a community college.</p>
<p>LSAC, the organization that compiles and reports to law schools information about applicants to law school, will require that an applicant to law school send all transcripts for college credits/grades received before the applicants first 4-year college degree is granted. The grades received in college courses taken while in high school will absolutely count as part of the applicant's LSDAS (law school data assembly service) GPA when applying to law school. </p>
<p>That said, law schools will see copies of the actual transcripts and will know when and where each grade included in the recalculated GPA was earned.</p>
<p>Where are they entering college as juniors? Also, how many students do you know of specifically who have graduated in two years. The reason I ask these questions is I wonder if it's more of a theory that's out there, rather than a reality. </p>
<p>Though it's not law or med, on the grad school admissions committees I have sat, we would never consider someone who has only spent two years in an undergraduate college after highschool.</p>
<p>The reasons would be these. Their predicted age and maturity level would be a disadvantage (even if the prediction is inaccurate). There would be a question mark of whether they had enough time to know themselves, their real interests and best career goals for themselves. </p>
<p>As important, we might suspect they lack the values and perspective we are looking for. This is because it might appear that such candidates chose speed and quantity over experience, quality of education and development. That they viewed education like a commodity, a race, boxes to be checked off in an instrumental fashion, rather than as an experience, where one takes courses but also acquires wisdom, insight, critical thinking and development along the way. Education is so much more than what scores you get, and so much more goes on in the undergraduate yeras than earning credits.</p>
<p>Now I can think of some exceptions to what I'm saying about the time length. Like the truly high gifted who leave HS early and start university in their early to mid teens and finish early (I know some fantastic transition programs for such kids). Or those that manage to knock off a year in various ways. But what you are describing above, as a whole, creates a very different picture of a particularly different kind of student who comes across as more focused on 'getting it over with' than being intellectually curious.</p>
<p>Here in the rural Midwest, there are a lot of high schools that have set up a track whereby a student can earn an AA degree (or that many credits, anyway) by the time he/she graduates from high school. I don't know that the rigor of the courses taken equals that of lots of four-year colleges, and I also worry that students are then forced to make their career decisions at age 18 since they are going into upper-level classes immediately upon high school graduation. All the state universities and most private schools in my state accept these credits. and it is tempting to encourage a child to go this route because the family bears no cost for the dual-enrollment credits earned during high school.</p>
<p>Thanks, swimcatsmom. I will also post this in the pre-med forum -- but parents are sometimes just as helpful as students in answering these kinds of questions.</p>
<p>Aren't high school students earning lots of dual-enrollment college credits in other parts of the country?</p>
<p>I am just looking for some insight regarding how that kind of abbreviated college experience is regarded by graduate and professional schools.</p>
<p>I interview for a med school, and many students enter college with credits from APs etc. If the student took AP Chem, for example, and passed out of intro chem, then there is no grade, but it is important to see grades for organic, advanced bio etc. Not sure how an "A" from a CC would be viewed vs and "A" from a 4yr university. There are many non-traditional student applicants these days. Lab research and volunteering are important.</p>
<p>LSAC does count any grades in college courses, even when earned in high school. That comes as a huge shock to some kids who suffered from senioritis in high school and see that the LSDAS-calculated gpa is much lower than they expected. </p>
<p>Based solely on the few kids who have posted on the law board about such situations, my impression is that you need to be able to submit at least two years of grades from a 4year college, which means you need to apply after graduation. That means taking a year off between college and LS. </p>
<p>There used to be a poster on another board who was in this situation, except he got a degree in 1.5 years after high school. He went to UWisc-Steven's Pt. (or something similar to that) for dual enrollment and then on to UWisc-Madision. Despite a LSAT above 175 (outstanding) and a 3.9 gpa, he didn't get into any of the top 14-ranked law schools.</p>
<p>Of course, there could be other reasons--negative recs, etc., but still, I don't think LSs are enthused about these kids, especially when they aren't the true "genius" types. However, it does seem to even itself out if the kids work a few years post-college and do well.</p>
<p>In the past 10 years*, I have had many students enter college with junior status because of all the AP and dual-enrollment credits they bring with them. In most cases, this status is illusory and for all intents and purposes they are simply freshmen (with boatloads of credits) and stay at the university for 4 years to get a proper education and foundation for med school, law school, or grad school. Many law or med schools will not consider applicants who are only 2 years out of high school unless the applicant is extraordinary in some way. </p>
<p>*This seems to be a relatively recent phenomenon . . . prior to 1995 or so most students came in with a few AP credits at most. Now there seems to be a compulsion to come in with as many credits as possible. As an educator, I'm not crazy about this. AP and dual-enrollment courses rarely match the content and rigor what my university offers and do not serve the maturing process that students gain in 4 years at a college/university. (Just my opinion . . .)</p>
<p>In many of the top law schools, a significant percentage of the student body has one or more years of post-college graduation, full-time work experience under their belts before entering law school. The effect on students who graduate from college young is that their classmates are generally older than they are, in many cases by more than a few years, and these older classmates may be perceived by employers who recruit at law schools as safer bets -- more seasoned, more worldly and more mature. Most law students obtain their summer and permanent first jobs through on campus interviewing/interviewing during law school. It has been my experience that younger law students are not taken as seriously, and are generally less likely to be wildly successful in the hiring process.</p>