A couple days ago, I finished and submitted my applications to Cal Poly SLO and Cal Poly Pomona (the only two colleges I applied to). I applied for Computer Engineering and opted out of an alternative major.
Because of how much raw highschool stats go into applying for CSU schools, I’m curious how that impacts a Junior applying to college a year early.
For reference, I applied with a 4.3 CSU GPA and didn’t bother taking the SAT or ACT since I know these schools are test blind for Fall 2022. My course rigor is pretty basic, about 2 honors classes, 1 AP, but 4 dual enrollment classes that I’m taking this fall/spring including Calculus 1.
From what I’ve heard, Cal Poly doesn’t look at 9th grade scores and I’m not sure if they care about courses that are in progress/planned. So all that leaves is my 10th grade scores and rigor which seems pretty weak for an application.
Curious to hear if anyone has any input on my situation. Is there anyway where graduating a year early can be beneficial on my application?
No. With the exception of a couple of 1% of the 1% superstars, I can’t think of an example where graduating early is anything but detrimental for college admissions.
SLO uses 9-11th grades in their SLO GPA calculation while Pomona uses 10-11th grades in the CSU GPA calculation. I agree with @skieurope that graduating early is not a tip for admissions especially since SLO requires far and above the normal a-g course requirements to be competitive. All CSU’s will look at in-progress courses but take a look at the expected courses recommended for SLO to give you an idea how you stack up. IE. 5 years Math, 2 years VPA etc…
Best of luck and Cal Poly Pomona is probably a Match. SLO is going to be a tough admit.
It may depend upon what you did with the time between graduating early & beginning college. Graduating early might be viewed as similar to taking a gap year or a gap semester by some adcoms.