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To be blunt, your HS career thus far does not look exceptional and you wouldn’t be one of the “phenomenal” early graduates that actually are accepted to HYPS.</p>
<p>^ As I mentioned before, I came into high school not knowing a thing about college or about high school. At the beginning of second semester, I had nothing better to do than to reflect upon myself and think of my future, and that is when I began my research. It is too late to beef up my freshman extracurriculars now. Are you saying that, without that extra year, my ECs will look unimpressive and I will be condemned to rejection?</p>
<p>Oh, and I had a long talk with my counselor today. Although she opposes me graduating early, she told me to directly ask my top-choice colleges if I should graduate early or not. And, apparently, my high school is considered an extremely competitive public school (close to 1000 students in freshman class) and it is good that I am in the top 10%. She says I should stay longer because there is more chance of getting National Merit, more internships, and I will have more time to get my rank up to top 10-20. She also spoke of how colleges will admit based on what they need, how Rice rejected our valedictorian and accepted the number 15 or so. And, to my surprise, she said that we send a few students to some places like Cornell and CMU every year, and 1 person to Harvard each year.</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/914362-interesting-admission-results-my-ss-top-college-prep-school.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/914362-interesting-admission-results-my-ss-top-college-prep-school.html</a></p>
<p>Students with not that many APs and serious ECs getting in. There are so many different sides to college admissions, so many potential explanations. This is torture for my OCD-ish need for a plan.</p>
<p>I feel bad saying this, but you do not sound like you are going to be emotionally and socially ready to leave home in two years.</p>
<p>Sheenr: Keep talking to your counselor, and to other adults who can really get to know you and support you. It is the people in your life that matter, both now and in college - make good relationships with the trusted adults around you - your teachers, your counselors, your coaches, and most importantly, your family. You deserve support and wise counsel. And, you deserve a high school career that is both academically challenging and fun. You only get to be in high school once in your life - enjoy it, let it be a blast! Re: Ivy admits of young students, a Yale admissions rep stated categorically at a recruitment event earlier this year that Yale does not accept students who will not turn 18 within their freshman year. Yale discourages grade-skipped or early HS grads from applying - they are extremely unlikely to consider such students unless they are both exceptionally accomplished and have taken a gap year before entering college. So if you are intending to reach for the most selective colleges, don’t even think of graduating early, it’s not what they’re looking for at all. Indeed, I believe that some highly selective colleges value students who choose to take a gap year after HS, entering a year “late”; an extra year of living and maturing can increase student success and satisfaction in college and life.</p>
<p>Hey,
I’m currently a junior and I’m going to be attending Columbia next year. :)</p>
<p>I never planned on graduating early; it just so happened that I did. In fact, I didn’t actually decide to graduate early until this past summer when upon reviewing all my course work I discovered that I had no math classes to take junior or senior year and would take most of the AP classes offered by my school junior year (I have enough AP credits to graduate from college a year early too haha), leaving no classes for me to take senior year except for AP English. I also had taken all my SAT tests sophomore year. Also for extracurriculars, I already had several leadership positions, won various awards, and volunteered over 300 hours by the beginning of junior year so I certainly wasn’t lacking in that area either.</p>
<p>I would definitely NOT recommend graduating early for the simple sake for graduating early. I would only recommend it if you’re really bored in high school or you are desperately seeking a change of environment. Being younger in the college admissions game does give you an advantage; it will only make it much more difficult for you to get into a top school as colleges are wary of junior applicants because they are usually not as mature as regular applicants and thus fail out at a higher rate.</p>
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<p>Just a few remarks:
- You sound pretty burned out already, and you’re a freshman. I doubt this accelerated graduation schedule will exactly help your stress situation.
- Of course it matters whether you took Calculus. I get the feeling you’re just grasping at straws here to try to convince yourself that your original plan was optimal - it’s not, believe me. More time is almost always better.
- If you got a C+ in Geometry, what makes you think you can handle your soph/junior courseloads? In addition to your “crazy” ECs?
- Your “disadvantages of regular graduation” are not very substantive. Not one legitimate reason IMO. </p>
<p>Bottom line: I absolutely cannot see how you can possibly go wrong graduating along with the rest of your classmates. It’s very possible, however, that you will end up regretting graduating early.</p>