<p>I'm an engineer at UCLA, and I was wondering if graduating in 3 years gives me an advantage when applying to grad school? </p>
<p>No, it won’t give you an advantage. It may actually be a disadvantage depending on your program because you will have had less time to build up a strong application to graduation school (in terms of research experience, GRE scores, GPA, letters of recommendation, etc). At best, graduate schools won’t care, but you won’t get any bonus points for graduating early. Financial concerns, however, are a valid reason to graduate early, and if you are not a competitive applicant for graduate school at that point, then you can always take a gap year or two to strengthen your application.</p>
<p>I agree…there are no prizes for graduating early (except for the money you save). If you are taking more classes each semester, that could affect your GPA. But if you are target, taking the normal amount of classes and have had the opportunity to do research, then why not?</p>
<p>My DD graduated in 2.5 years (IB Credits) and went on to grad school…but she didn’t have take extra credits (she did take a couple of general Ed summer classes) in a given semester.</p>