<p>Hi, I'm currently a junior at the age of 15. I will be graduating high school at 16 and will be turning 17 in my college freshman year (on September) </p>
<p>Does this affect how colleges view me? For the better or worse? </p>
<p>Thanks!</p>
<p>It’s probably not an issue, since it sounds like you’re only a year early. Kids who are 13 or 14 have a much different situation. I would just not draw attention to it, and see what happens. Only if some college raises it as an issue would I talk about it.</p>
<p>As always, talk with your GC to see if they have any perspective. It’s not as uncommon as you might think, there are probably one or two who graduate at 16 from any given large HS in the US every year.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t agree that one or two 16-year-olds graduate from any large high school a year. Grade acceleration is still rare and those on a regular track finding themselves with enough units to graduate high school a semester or two early are often already 17 or 18. The age of the typical high schooler is rising. That said, I agree that being 16 isn’t going to send up any red flags to the admissions office. My D has already gotten 5 acceptances and she’s currently a 16-year-old high school senior (Will be a young 17 when she enters the university.)</p>
<p>Don’t stress it and good luck to you when it’s your turn to apply!</p>
<p>One or two kids out of a class of 600 would still be rare, yet still one or two a year. And it’s often not obvious who the accelerated kids are. (They are often transfers who were in a higher grade in another state or country.) </p>
<p>In D’s HS, if they ranked, the number one kid would probably be someone who will graduate at 16, but unless you knew her from way back, you’d never know.</p>
<p>Mrmom, I agree that most people wouldn’t know who is 16 but I also know that in most areas it’s rarer than 1in 600 kids that get accelerated. We have or I should say had a late cut-off so 16-year old seniors in September happen. However, it is still quite rare to have one graduating at 16. Sorry, done a lot of research on this and active advocate for the gifted. Personally, I think lots of kids could benefit from grade acceleration but at the moment, it’s still very difficult to get outside of particular pockets. Like I said, I totally agree that it’s not going to be a big deal for this kid. These days though, it’s much more common to have multiple 19-year-old high school graduates than one or two 16-year-olds.</p>
<p>That is very true about the 19 year-olds, which I hate. Parents do that for sports purposes, and it fools no one.</p>