graduating a year early?

<p>Do colleges consider this as a plus? I am making the decision to do high school in three years instead, and next year i will be taking all honors courses as well as 3-4 AP exams (and the sats/acts of course as well), basically a really intense junior year without the perks of a slacker senior year...but hey, at least ill escape the high school hell a year early. Will this put me a little ahead in colleges eyes, or will it not make a difference? Has anyone here done this, how did you survive with the workload and lack of time for...anything? And now i have about two months to start looking at colleges, instead of a little over a year..</p>

<p>a current friend of mine is doing this. however, i have heard that colleges don't look at that very favorably unless you have a very solid reason for graduating early (as in you are a genius and your school doesn't challenge you at all). but that's just what i have heard, take it with a grain of salt.</p>

<p>if anything, it's neutral or a minus. basically colleges expect you to do the same in three years that the other applicants do in four, so if anything you're being put at a disadvantage. but even if you could do it and still get into a good college (like i did), it's still a bad idea, PM me if you want to know why.</p>

<p>two of my friends (twins) did that this year. I personally don't think they're ready to go to college, but i don't dare say it to them. </p>

<p>I don't know the exact answer to your question, but I have heard from others that colleges aren't generally partial to early graduates.</p>

<p>I did it and got into my first choice (big reach). I could have stayed in H.S. and taken more classes at the AP/honors level (it's not like I exhausted my schools curric.). I don't think I would have learned much more if I had stayed in H.S. another year and I wanted to get out of this little bubble ASAP and into a more favorable environment. I thought about my choice, I took it seriously and did everything possible to achieve what I would have achieved if I had stayed another year. Don't short change yourself. Don't settle for less. If you think that you'll be as competetive after three years as you would after four years, go ahead and graduate. Otherwise, don't.</p>

<p>Well my higshchool does not challenege me AT ALL. i have above a 100 percent average in 4 out of 6 of my courses, and A-'s in the other two. So my reason is simply that my high school has nothing to offer me, and i am more mature than most of my class mates. (i went to a boarding school for a year and a half, grew up a bit haha).</p>

<p>lol... im graduating when i turn 17... usually its 18 right? lol... id love to graduate early, but canada isnt like that lol...</p>

<p>gets some ECs and who knows, maybe u could write an essay about how you thought ur high school experience wasnt so rewarding???... just my thoughts lol.. what is the point to graduate 1 year early... if u could skip 1 year and attend university courses that would be awesome... but yah... graduate with ur class... or else ud seem like u arent pertinent to being social... </p>

<p>that is just my 2 cents...</p>

<p>I know a girl who skipped a grade AND graduated a year early. And she's going to MIT.</p>

<p>I don't think graduating early would hurt you, but I think having one more year to get better SAT/ACT scores and ECs would be very beneficial.</p>

<p>
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I know a girl who skipped a grade AND graduated a year early. And she's going to MIT.

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<p>I was going to add that if you're like me and have already skipped a grade, graduating a year early might not be the best idea because 1) you're 2 years younger than everyone and 2) the consequences of being 2 years younger than everyone.</p>

<p>You can already tell that girl's going to be dating a lot. [/sarcasm]</p>

<p>One of my friends skipped two grades in elementary/middle school and wound up being valedictorian of her class. She wound up going to Caltech, and experienced some pretty heavy difficulties adjusting to college life, some of which I'm quite sure wouldn't have been as bad if she had been a year or two older.</p>

<p>As you are making your choices, remember that high school education is a lot cheaper than college (or free if you're going to a public school). Money-wise, it would be less expensive to get AP credits so you can place out of college introductory class, which also have the disadvantage of having a class size of a few hundred students.</p>