Early Graduation?

Applying to College
1

So I entered high school in 7th grade through the Academic Center program in Chicago (more info: http://cpsmagnet.org/apps/pages/index.jsp?uREC_ID=72695&type=d&termREC_ID=&pREC_ID=151354) and I’ll be able to graduate my Junior year since I’ll have gotten all my required credits (I’m a Sophomore right now). Originally, I was going to study abroad in China for my Junior year, but I was rejected from one scholarship and didn’t meet the health requirements for another (it was stupid for me to only apply to two scholarships, but there are little to no full-ride scholarships to study abroad in China). After I realized that I wouldn’t be able to study abroad my Junior year, I figured that staying in high school for an extra year would essentially be a waste of time for me. But before you start saying things, please read the rest to somewhat understand my situation:

Reasons for graduating early:

  1. I genuinely do not feel challenged. I love to challenge myself by taking the hardest classes possible (I’m taking all honors and 2 AP classes this year – would have been 3 but I wanted to take Engineering) but I still do not feel challenged – the assignments are mainly busywork. I took classes at UChicago over the summer, and I truly felt challenged, like I was really taught to think for myself and think about the big picture. I loved my experience at the university.
  2. The school is extremely discouraging. More info below.
  3. The requirements for dual enrollment… My school requires all students to take 7 classes (so we can’t leave school early to take classes at other colleges) and have a lunch period (so you can’t add an 8th class to your schedule). Dual enrollment classes would have to be night classes, leaving little time for extracurriculars. So I would spend my senior year taking classes that I find no interest in while and then taking classes at a college or trying to do my other extracurriculars, probably not getting home until 9pm, having to do my homework late into the night, and then have to wake up at 4:30-5:00am for morning practice. Every. Day. So they want us to take classes at community colleges, and they still make us take 7 classes that we may not need or have no interest in? No thanks. They also tell us to take classes at community college but refuse to let us take an 8th high school class instead? That makes perfect sense.

Back to point #2: My counselor refused to sign my application to take classes at my local community college (and I doubt she will sign the papers for me to take classes at UChicago at this point). She called me “the queen of trying to take on the world” and said that I’m going to kill myself if I take an 8th class. I was quite upset at her comment, because I took a class from 4:30-7:30 two times a week on Digital Electronics & Electrical Engineering at a college as an 8th grader where we had to do research and a lot of homework and presentational prep with our classmates outside of class. Although there were no grades for the class, I was asked to present at many of his STEM for minorities events, do a paid internship with the professor over the summer, and even worked on my science fair project with him. And she said I would kill myself trying to take a community college class. I ended up taking Korean classes at UIC this semester instead. I know that I can handle the workload just fine, but I didn’t understand why she didn’t sign the papers. She also tried to discourage me from taking AP Physics and Engineering in the same year, but I’m doing just fine in those classes. My AP Physics teacher even let me be her Student Assistant Teacher for the following year. My counselor also told me that my application for a 3-year program was too rushed and that I wouldn’t get accepted, but I ended up being the only student from my school to get accepted to the highly competitive program at UChicago. She discourages me from doing a lot of things, even though I’ve proven her wrong in each case. I really don’t appreciate her discouragement.

I am gravitating towards EECS or Physics with a minor in Asian Studies and/or International Relations for college, so I’m planning on taking AP Physics C and Calculus next year (I’m also going to take APES and AP Chinese out of pure interest). I then plan on taking classes with College Bridge at UChicago over the summer and take Statistics, Biology, and possibly Chemistry at my local community college. Or really just more science classes and maybe a Chinese class.

My main worry with graduating early would be that I may not get accepted to a top school like MIT or Caltech, and that I may not get scholarships to cover the costs. I would actually be fine with in-state schools (Urbana-Champaign’s engineering program is one of the best in the world, UIC has a really good engineering program, and UChicago has an amazing Physics and liberal arts program), but I’m not sure about one of the programs that I’m in at the University of Chicago. Its focus is on getting their students into top colleges like MIT, Harvard, UChicago, etc. and I’m afraid that I won’t get into a top college. I’m also worried because I had a major episode during first semester this year and I was in the hospital for a while, so my grades have been pretty low (I only have 2 A’s while the rest are B’s). Will this be counted against me or would this be a plausible reason for my low grades? Since I was in the hospital for depression, will I be at a disadvantage in the application process?

Before you say that I may not have extracurriculars that top colleges would want, here are some of the major ones that I do:
the program at UChicago which is one of the most selective program for high school students in Chicago, competitive figure skating, the research internship with the college professor, math team, co-captain of my school’s Ultimate Frisbee team, member of the robotics team at my school, volunteer at Working Bikes which is a really nice organization that brings used bikes to people in Africa and Latin America, co-founder and executive board member of a non-profit environmental organization, and… yeah… that’s basically it. I’ve done more but these are the major ones that I’ve been a part of for a long time.

Your thoughts?

2

Don’t be in a hurry to grow up. Senior year of high school is an unique experience and you will miss it. You may not miss Senior year today or tomorrow, but one day you will probably look back and realize you didn’t have to speed through things. You need to slow down and enjoy life.

Legally speaking, you are required to have a lunch break in high school. Only in very special circumstances can that be waived. There are hour requirements for you to be officially enrolled in high school.

Since you are in Illinois, you will need 4 years of English and 3.5 years of PE to graduate high school. Every secondary school has its own rules about accepting students under the age of 18. If you are not yet 16, most schools won’t accept you. You need to complete all the high school graduation requirements prior to graduation. Many high schools won’t allow their students to graduate early. Those which do generally require approval from your guidance counselor and/or academic committee. My own high school in Illinois would only allow students to graduate one semester early at the end of the first semester of Senior year.

You sound like one of those kids who will burn out one day if you don’t take it easy. Sometimes, in life, less is more. Enjoy your childhood, you will miss it one day. Your counselor is trying to protect you from burn out. You’ve already burned out once. A repeat could be more damaging.

Have you even thought about the financial aspect of college?

3

Have you even thought about the financial aspect of college?

^^^^^ This.

You need to have the Money Talk with your parents. For ideas on that, spend some time in the Financial Aid Forum.

If you are fed up with high school, and your parents think that they can make the money work, you might be a candidate for Early College. Since you like the U of C, ask them whether they think it makes sense for you. Here is a list of programs that are designed specifically for younger, college-ready students http://www.hoagiesgifted.org/early_college.htm

4

MIT has many students who are younger than typical.

5

Hi Nova10, I don’t think you opened the link about the Academic Center. Because I am a former Academic Center student, I started my Freshman year as a Sophomore, and by my Junior year I will be a Senior. I will have already gotten my 4 years of English, and an opt out of gym since I’ll be taking Dance (they changed the requirements in Illinois to gym for all 4 years unless you’re taking Dance, involved in a sport, or need to take a class that will boost your college admissions). Also, I totally forgot that we’re legally required to be in school for a set time, my mistakes!!

As for my age, I have a late birthday, which is why I’m a Sophomore and not a Junior. My birthday is a few days after the September cutoff age and most colleges start the fall quarter in late September. I’ll be 18 (or almost 18) by the time most colleges start if I graduate early.

I did not mention this (though I should have), but my stay in the hospital was completely unrelated to school. Being in class was actually the only thing I liked to do at that time, but my depression caused me to lack the concentration to take tests (which is how our grading system works now… solely based on quizzes and tests…) and kept me home for many days (which also resulted in my terrible grades).

Coming from a low-income family, the financial aspect of college was all I used to think about. It was not until I started the program at UChicago that I was told not to let the cost of the college discourage me from applying. In the program, we take a course the summer before Senior year that helps us with our college and scholarship applications and throughout the year we also receive help from them. So even if I do get accepted to MIT (for example) and I don’t get enough scholarship money or financial aid, there are always schools in-state to look into. For tuition: UIC is $8k/year, Urbana-Champaign is $12k/year, and UChicago is free since I am a Chicago Public Schools student. UIC and Urbana-Champaign have pretty high acceptance rates, so I have no worries about being accepted to those schools, but UChicago is a gamble. I have no problem going to school in state or being a commuter student. I understand how expensive college is, and I don’t want to be in debt for the rest of my life, but if I win a full ride scholarship or get enough scholarhip money and financial aid to afford a college like MIT, Caltech, or UMichigan, then I will definitely go.

I’ve actually had a talk like this with my whole family (aunts, uncles, and grandparents) once when college was brought up during our monthly meetings. They all grew up in Mexico, so they weren’t able to get an education right after high school (though 3 members of the family recently got their bachelors degrees!!!) and they are extremely happy and proud that I am so motivated and determined to go to college. We do this thing where everyone in the family pitches in to help one another when one member may not be able to cover the costs (like buying a new car, mortgage payment, renovations, hospital bills, etc.) and they said that they would be willing to help offset the costs to see me pursue my passions and get a degree. Of course it may not cover all of it, but they will cover portions of the costs. I also plan on getting a job to help pay, of course.

4 out of the roughly 30 students in the UChicago program won the Posse scholarship (that I know of… I don’t know a lot of kids in the senior class) and more are sure to get full-rides to their colleges. It’s a very successful program. I don’t doubt their success one bit. Still, I know that the students are the major players in the college process, so I don’t plan on doing everything for the faint of heart. I would rather avoid burnout my actual senior year. For me, I think going to college early is more to keep me interested in my academics rather than to “get ahead” of my peers.

6

Your reasons for wanting to do graduate early are very good. A few things:

  1. Try to pull up your grades second semester. This is of the utmost importance, because while colleges will understand that depression was the reason for the slump, if you’re applying early they need to have no doubts that you are ready to thrive in a college setting.
  2. Start taking standardized testing. I contemplated graduating early at the start of sophomore year but decided not to do so a few months later. I did, however, get the SAT out of the way by the end of sophomore year, with the result that this year, when I realized that I really should apply to college as a junior, I was able to focus on the applications, not the tests.
  3. The last point speaks to this one: keep your options open. I know several sophomores who have contemplated graduating early but eventually decided against it when they found other programs. I doubt that this will be you, since you’ve done just about everything in your power to find challenge and still don’t have enough of it, but do be careful about locking yourself in. Look for more scholarships for study-abroad and apply to those, if you’d like, even if they aren’t in China. Ask your counselor about signing the papers to take classes at UChicago or another college again.
  4. In general, if you’re an early applicant, you need to have your school on your side. This means that all of your recs, the counselor rec included, are going to need to show that you’re ready to leave high school and go to college. You need to get your counselor and teachers on your side.
  5. There is the option of applying only to highly selective schools next year. This will mean having no idea what your future will look like for a few months (Senior year? College? China?), but would leave you without regrets.
    Good luck! I hope that everything works out for you.