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<p>AGAIN, are you using Ivy League as shorthand for “excellent / top school” or because you are under some impression that those 8 schools are more special than the rest? (Because they aren’t, they are just 8 among the best)</p>
<p>And why is her dream school Harvard? Can she articulate that beyond “everyone knows Harvard and wouldn’t it be really cool to say I go there”? It’s easy to have a dream school. That’s not where the work lies.</p>
<p>And it’s a “bad dream” school, 'cause it’s one where she’s not getting in. (Frankly, for any student for whom the 3 v. 4 year thing is a real question, who is busy figuring out “high school leadership” positions as a hook on his/her applications, is probably even LESS likely to be getting in. For students who have a serious chance of beating the 33 to 1 odds, these just aren’t concerns.)</p>
<p>There are students her age who already hold three patents, have written and published novels, presented at major scientific conferences, founded large philanthropic organizations, etc. for whom these questions MIGHT, in a very few cases, have some real meaning, but not here.</p>
<p>I think all of the top colleges are willing to take someone who has raced through high school, but none of them probably sees it as an advantage. On the whole, they would rather take slightly older, more mature students. One of the little secrets of the elite, “feeder” prep schools is that they set kids up to graduate late, not early, and one of Harvard’s quirks is its “Z-list” where it accepts kids but tells them to do something else for a year before they enroll.</p>
<p>A handful of kids who graduate from high school early do get accepted at Harvard and its ilk (or who don’t even bother graduating – few of the top colleges require high school graduation as a condition to acceptance or enrollment). I think they tend to be kids who are just undeniable, who have completely and obviously outgrown the resources available to them where they live, and who desperately need to get transplanted so they don’t become root-bound. Of course, not ALL of these get into Harvard; some wind up transplanting themselves to state universities, and they do fine there, too.</p>
<p>Back in the Pleistocene, my wife graduated from her crappy rural public high school a year early. She was a good student, but not the #1 in her class; a certain amount of test anxiety limited her SAT scores; but she was bored to tears in school. I suspect her recommendations noticed her leadership potential. She was very young – still just 15 when she was applying. She wanted to get accepted somewhere and then do a gap year working with autistic children. (The high school wouldn’t let her graduate without a college acceptance. It had enough trouble with sending kids to college, and it wasn’t going to let one of its stars count as not going to college in its statistical reports.) Anyway, she applied to three colleges. Smith, her first choice, turned her down. Brown was willing to accept her but not to let her defer enrollment. The only college that let her do what she wanted was Yale. (Where she was summa cum laude and a peripatetic student activist.)</p>
<p>I don’t see the issue here as being how many years of grades your daughter has. She has the number of credits to graduate which should involve enough grades. </p>
<p>That said, those who graduate HS early tend to be scrutinized a bit more by adcoms than regular college applicants. But they can and do get admitted to college. A college is going to want to see that this student is exceptional and ready for college, not just academically but across the board. I hope that her recommendations address her being an early graduate and speak to her readiness to enter college at a younger age. </p>
<p>I have a daughter who did this as well. She graduated HS in three years. She also had an early entrance into K and so went to college at age 16. In her case, she was ready for college not just academically (and had also accelerated like your D), but socially, emotionally, as well as her achievements extracurricularly in her area of passion which she planned to pursue as her college major in the arts. Even with ECs, she had exhausted the achievements she could strive for as a high school student. But she wrote an extra piece to include in all her applications that discussed her rationale for graduating early (again, beyond just academic reasons) and her guidance counselor and other rec writers also spoke to her readiness to enter college at a young age. Before she even applied to college, I called her colleges anonymously and asked if they took early graduates and all her schools said that they do as long as they have a diploma and they didn’t care how long it took to earn it. But I do know as a college counselor myself, that early graduates will be scrutinized more than other applicants (but not for the issue you raised about less grades on the transcript…which I don’t totally understand anyway, as I know for my daughter to earn enough credits, she had many HS credits earned while still in middle school on her transcript and so had those in addition to ninth and tenth grade grades). Her junior year of high school was also her senior year. My daughter, however, did not apply to Ivy League schools (though is an excellent student). She was striving for the highly competitive BFA in Musical Theater programs which have acceptance rates LOWER than the Ivy League! She got into the majority of programs she applied to and so being an early graduate did not hurt her. Even though she was an early graduate, she was not only accepted at her top school, but won one of their most significant scholarships there, plus was selected as a “Scholar” too. Once there, she was a leader and received more scholarships and awards, etc. and so obviously her being so young was not an issue for the college and to the contrary, she was on the higher end when it came to being recognized there as an applicant, during the four years, and awards upon college graduation.</p>
<p>A member who no longer posts here, Marite, has a son who entered Harvard after graduating HS in three years. He is not the only one. </p>
<p>I hope your D applied to schools besides Ivy League ones, not because she is an early graduate, but because I’d say that to ANYONE.</p>
<p>Mifune, another poster on here, went to Harvard after three years of school, too, but he transferred out.</p>
<p>Mifune is not a great example.</p>
<p>My son applied last fall with only two years of high school and he had no problems with admissions (not Ivy league, however, not in the budget). Only one school he talked to cared at all about the number of years spent in school, or his age. What was important were the courses he had taken, his grades and his test scores. I think his maturity and drive is obvious when you meet him, so that probably helped.</p>
<p>Outside of Ivy league, of which I have no experience so can’t comment, I don’t think graduating in three years will be an obstacle to college admission at all.</p>
<p>Both the val and the sal of my son’s HS class were admitted to H. Neither was hooked. H admittees do not walk on water.</p>
<p>My question is why does your D want to graduate early?</p>
<p>For very unhooked val and sal who was admitted, 64 applicants were denied.</p>
<p>I don’t recall Mifune. I purposely didn’t mention Marite’s son, as he had 2 hooks at minimum. He was an academic star, in addition.</p>
<p>I have no problem with going to college early. My son would have taken only Eng IV at HS, and the rest of his classes at local state U. He had already taken a dozen classes there, as local HS didn’t offer math, language, science classes at his level. Two of his friends decided to skip senior year too. In the past 7 years, I cannot recall a single unhooked local being accepted at HYP.</p>
<p>Just updating: Yesterday she received a likely letter from Columbia!!!</p>
<p>First of all, I want to thank the parents that, while posting here, were considerate and kind with their word choice and their advises: Thank you for not obliterating the dream.</p>
<p>I would also like for this last post to help future parents whose children decide to graduate from HS in three years. As an answer to my own question, kids who graduate in three years are Ivy League material. Of course, it takes great work, discipline, and determination. However, if these three magic ingredients reside in any resilient personality, the Ivies will notice them, as well as Caltech and Stanford.</p>
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But that was not your OP question. You asked if the early graduation “diminishes her chances.” </p>
<p>Of course it was great to hear your D received the likely letter from Columbia. Best wishes to her if that’s her next move!</p>
<p>I think early graduation often reduces chances, but am very glad to hear that it didn’t in your daughter’s case. Some kids really are ready to move on sooner.</p>
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<p>That’s wonderful!! Congrats!</p>