Hi! I am thinking about graduating early and graduating with the class of 2014. What were your experiences with graduating early? Just wondering. 
You mean like you’re a junior with enough credits to just graduate with the seniors?
I could have “graduated” in the winter after first semester of this year, I had all my credits in line but the top students from my experience don’t do that so I didn’t. So im only taking 3 classes instead of 4 this semester, making it an easy last semester of high school.
I would stay in your normal 4 years and just enjoy school while you still can
What are your questions? My son did it last year. He was supposed to be 2013 but over the summer before starting his junior year decided to apply to colleges that year and graduate a year early. The school was willing to work with us if we wanted - he had enough credits but had to get a waiver because one of his Language Arts credits was taken in 8th grade. He applied early to 4 schools - MIT, Caltech, Michigan and Purdue (neither were in state for us) and was accepted to all EA. He’s currently really enjoying his freshman year at MIT and has no regrets. But I will say he’d been taking classes at the HS since 6th grade and had he stayed another year would have taken everything through Dual Enrollment at the local college other than band. Also, his GF and friends were mostly seniors and he’d already done prom, etc. About the only thing he felt he missed out on was one more season of tennis. One glitch was that he is a year behind for NMSC since he hadn’t taken the PSAT as a sophomore (well, he had but hadn’t marked that he was a junior) so he just became a finalist, etc. while he was already in college. Since all he was eligible for (and received) was one of the $2500 scholarships, it didn’t make a difference, but if you were looking at a school with significant NM aid it might.
Thank you! You are the only one has actually been positive in your answer and not try to discourage me! I wasn’t looking for the NM aid, so that won’t affect me much. Also were the universities apprehensive at all about his young age?
The feel we got from colleges was that the top ones didn’t care if you had actually graduated/had the diploma and instead were judging your application on your merits. State schools (particularly WI and MN) were very concerned that your application was pending on actually having graduated (not just entering college early without a degree). This wasn’t an issue for my son since he was able to get the diploma but depending on your HS, you may want to look into this further.
My son was accepted EA to all 4 schools he applied to so evidently they weren’t concerned about his age (he’ll be 18 this summer - after he finishes his freshman year at college). I was at the Prefrosh visit weekend this past weekend and met many parents of incoming students who were 17, 16 and even 15! The impression we got from admissions staff was that they were more concerned about students who might be 13 or 14 but that 17 wasn’t even something they’d notice.
The only glitches he ran into at all with his age were:
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<li>Medical. Although the school assured me he’d be treated as an adult for all medical issues, I was still concerned about something happening off campus so I had a power of attorney made up for my brother who lives in the area. Just in case I couldn’t be reached.</li>
<li>PE - he had to have parental permission to do some PE classes (Sailing, Pistol) and he wasn’t allowed to do SCUBA (minimum age was 18).</li>
<li>Some of the experiments they do on campus where the students could volunteer to participate (mental skills, physical skills) - usually that people were conducting for class and might pay volunteers like $10-20 he couldn’t do since they required you be 18. </li>
</ol>
That was about all the limitations he found. I don’t believe hardly anyone knows he’s younger - he’s done fine in classes, is on a sports team and involved in music/performing groups, etc. When he’s seen things on Facebook this year from some of his HS classmates - stressing about SAT’s, waiting on college decisions, participating in HS competitions - he’s just SO glad to be done with all of that. But as I said, he didn’t really feel he missed anything. He did prom and all those types of things and was more than ready to move on.
Hope that helps - sorry on the delay answering as I was out of town.