I’m a junior this year in my first semester, and I’m hoping to graduate a semester early my senior year. This is mostly for personal reasons. I’m depressed as hell and unhappy (not to mention my anxiety disorders on top of this… It’s a rough life my dudes) and it’s mainly because of the environment of high school and the town I’m in. All I want is to start my life. I’m hoping leaving this behind a little early will give me some time to self reflect/ prepare for college. During that time I would get a job to save, go to therapy more often, and basically just try to figure out how the hell I can get better.
However, I’m worried this will screw up everything I’ve been working towards.
My GPA weighted Is a 4.57, I’m taking all IB classes and have three AP classes under my belt from last year (one 5, two 4s), as well as all Pre-IB classes from sophomore and freshman year. I’m on my varsity girls tennis team, as well as in national German honors society and national art honors society. I was also my class rep for our IB club for two years. Since I want to go into Pre-Med I’ve also sat in on surgeries, shadowed doctors, and have 200+ hours volunteering at my local hospital. My dad’s high up in the hospital and will most likely be able to get me a recommendation letter from a CEO etc… All Ivy League graduates.
I haven’t taken the SAT or ACT since 7th grade so I can’t tell those scores yet. When I took the PSAT last year I got a 1300+ but I haven’t gotten my scores back for this year yet.
I want to go to a good college (Duke… Vanderbilt… Barnard… not necessarily Ivy but close). But I know that if I don’t take this time for me I won’t excel there anyways. I’m worried that by not finishing the IB program I’ll be looked at negatively.
I have many different opinion coming at me (parents, counselor, friends, therapist) and I guess I just want some other ones. I want to make the decision that’s best for me but I can’t help but feeling like I’m hurting my future because of my mental health problems…
Any help would be appreciate
Can you put that vacant semester to good use? Working? Volunteering? You’ll need to do something to offset those competitors who are in clubs for the whole year. I normally wouldn’t recommend graduating early. Not finishing IB won’t hurt you.
Priorities: self-care first, college second. You aren’t going to make it through college and med school if you aren’t prepared to handle second semester of senior year. Perhaps a semester off isn’t what you need, though, rather than other avenues of treatment. Consider what your medical professional suggests. And bear in mind that second semester of senior year is over a year away from now - a lot can change.
Graduating a semester early may make you less competitive for top schools like the ones you list. Suppose you graduate on time and then, if you still need time off, see whether the colleges to which you are admitted would allow you to take a well-planned gap year.
I am just a parent, but it sounds like you are overestimating the importance of non-teacher recommendations.
I am going to be working and possibly get an internship if I can.
It’s been like this for 2+ years which is why I feel like not much will change. I haven’t made any progress in a long time and I feel the reason I haven’t gotten any better is because I haven’t had enough time off w/o classes or some sort of extensive extracurriculars, and therefore haven’t had adequate time to focus on my mental health. My parents won’t let me take a gap year, a semester is the most they’d go… and in terms of recommendations I have good relationships with my teachers and will have good ones from them as well, I was just listing another component of my application I guess. Thank you for your input I really appreciate it
Something to consider…2nd semester of the senior year is what many of the high school students look forward to…college applications are behind them, pressure of academics is much less, a lot more flexibility at the school, senior social events, and no more standardized testing for a while. So the environment may not be what it is now.
In the Ib program the second semester is probably the most stressful… its not like normal senior year. This is because they have to test out in all their subjects to get the IB diploma and stuff. I get where you’re coming from and I would agree if not for the program I’m in
I’m sincerely sorry for how long this message is going to get. It’s a lot to read, but I truly hope that it’s somewhat helpful because when I was going through what you’re going through right now, I would’ve really liked having some advice from someone that experienced whatever I was going through.
I probably sound weird but it’s really nice having someone who I can kind of relate to. I am currently a senior, and I am graduating a semester early (dec 21st is my last day!!). I hadn’t decided to graduate early until September because well I really really tried to be all about high school, but I just couldn’t do it anymore. Same with you, my motive for my early graduation is due to personal reasons. Sophomore year and junior year i was just soooo depressed, my life really was falling apart. And I guess I made matters worse by not acknowledging it until it got to the point of no return. Gosh anxiety, i know right. It’s so difficult. I’ve had truancy every year of my highschool, mainly because I just couldn’t bring myself to go. I had 54 absences my sophomore year and 34 my junior but on the good side only 12 this one semester of my senior year, however there’s ~ 180 days total for each year. I get panic attacks. Like really really often. So yeah anxiety sucks, and I just haven’t been able to pinpoint where it’s coming from or how or why its happening, which left with a lot of trouble and I just could not control myself. However, it’s not from the environment surrounding me. I love my high school to pieces; the faculty members and students here all genuinely care. My high school is like this one amazing big family and I’m really proud of how I’ve contributed to that. All us students painted our own school and us upperclassmen mentor the new incoming freshmen with advice and how to not make the same mistakes we did and how to combine your talent with hard work. Honest to god, had I not have gone to the school I do, I would have dropped out LONG LONG ago. I just don’t believe in the education system. While teachers and everything is great, I have quite a unique way of learning so it’s extremely difficult for me to reach the same level of expectations that other students achieve and if I can’t learn the same way, what’s the point of me being in the classroom wasting my time? Needless to say, it was overwhelming. My entire life from freshman year to now has been about this highschool: taking every AP class possible in my school (other than the languages and AP Environmental Science), being an active member and leader in over 14 extracurriculars, etc. I don’t get home til 9pm most days because of all that and my school starts at 7:30am.
Sorry I’m getting off topic, I tend to blab but let me just say this:
DO NOT WORRY THAT GRADUATING EARLY IS GOING TO SCREW EVERYTHING YOU’VE BEEN WORKING FOR. Obviously, procession with caution and reason, but don’t worry. Worrying will do nothing.
Like I said, we’re pretty similar people. So let me share with you my statistics to hopefully help you relax a bit.
My UW GPA is a 3.79 out of 4.0
My Weighted GPA is a 5.47 out of 6.0
My rank in my high school is 30/698 so I’m in the top 5% of my class.
SAT: 1370 out of 1600, 24 out of 24 on writing - took twice
ACT: 32 out of 36, perfect score on writing as well - took twice
The courses I’ve taken throughout my highschool life has been:
Algebra I Pre-AP (8th grade), Geometry Pre-AP (summer before 9th grade)
9th grade: Algebra II Pre-AP, Biology I Pre-AP, English I Pre-AP, World Geo Pre-AP, AP Drawing Studio (AP score: 5) (skipped Art I and Drawing II because I submitted my portfolio to my teacher), AVID I, French I.
Summer before 10th grade: Chemistry I Pre-AP
10th Grade: AP World History (AP score: 4), AP Physics 1 (AP score: 2), English II PreAP, Precalculus PreAP, Tennis (Junior Varsity Player), AVID II, French II
Summer before 11th grade: Speech
11th grade: AP Physics 2 (AP Score: 4), AP Psychology (AP: 4), AP Human Geography (AP: 5), AP Biology (AP: 4), English III, AP U.S History (AP: 2), Tennis (Varsity player like you!), AP Calculus BC (AP: 5, AB subscore: 5)
Summer before 12th grade: AP Government, AP Macroeconomics, Health
12th Grade (1st and only semester): AP English IV, AP Chemistry, AP Physics C, AP European History, AP Art History, AP Statistics, Tennis (Varsity player and team manager)
- Even tho I am graduating early, I am still planning to take the AP Exams in May 2018 for: English Literature, Chemistry, Physics C: Mechanics, Art History, Statistics, Government, and Macroeconomics. I personally don’t know how IB tests and it’s diploma works, so I might be wrong but I feel that in the same way I don’t have to take these AP exams, you don’t have to finish the IB program. I’m choosing to take these exams but who knows, maybe I’ll change my mind about whether or not I take them later.
Extracurricular Courses that I am in:
Tennis (as previously mentioned)
Model UN - President since 10th grade
French Club - 9th -11th grade - Vice President
Scream Team
Mentor Program at my school
National Math Honor Society
National Social Studies Honor Society
National English Honor Society
National Science Honor Society
National Beta Club
National Honor Society
Vietnamese Student Association
Volunteer Work I’ve done because I’ve never actually ever gotten a job… :
Habitat for Humanity - 20 hrs
Red Cross - 40 hrs
Disaster Relief Help (in light of all the natural disasters happening; our school was shut down for 2 and a half weeks) - 60 hours
Unicef - 30 hrs
Marathon Kids Fun Run- 24 hrs
AVID + YES program - 107 hrs
A local hospital junior volunteer and junior council chair of the special events committee - 300+ hrs (involved in the for the past four years)
Awards I have won:
2nd place tennis invitational girls b doubles
3rd place district tournament girls a division doubles
Ap scholar award
Academic excellence awards (basically like an all A or A/B honor roll thingy)
I also really want to go into pre-med mainly because I want to be a medical policy lawyer so I thought I should knock out the medical part first so I can do law school wherever I get my residency and complete an MD and a JD before the age of 30.
I’m so glad that you volunteer at your local hospital, it honestly helps in getting an extra “push” on college applications, however I wouldn’t ONLY depend on those CEOs for your letter of recommendation. In my personal opinion, I’d say to get a really good teacher recommendation as well.
And you said that you want to go to a top tier college, and I have the same hopes as well. I am not in the IB program but finishing the IB program is most definitely not as important as your mental health. I applied early decision to Rice University and honestly it’s all in free fall right now because decisions come out THIS FRIDAY. I’ll most likely update you on whether or not I got in. But even if I don’t get it, it doesn’t mean that you, a very smart seemingly awesome person, can’t get into a top tier college.
Even though I can’t tell you about Rice yet, I can tell you that I got accepted into the Pathways Honors Program at Depaul University, which to summarize: At Depaul, I would do a 3 yr undergrad double major in a liberal arts and a science, and then literally go straight into medical school (because it’s like a 99% acceptance rate) the next four years at a specific medical school.
Additionally I was automatically accepted into a school that nationally ranks in the 40s because I’m in the top 5% of my class. As well as that, my safety schools are schools that nationally rank in the early 30s. My approachable schools are all of the second tier but not top tier schools so like the rank 20s. My reach schools are obviously everything above the 20s all the way to like Cornell. And then my dream schools are the top 11 colleges. What I’m referencing is https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/rankings/national-universities.
Obviously, I haven’t gotten all my college decisions bc it’s still college application season so I’ll find out more in like March/April. What I do feel is really important to note is that, colleges don’t really mind the concept of graduating a semester early (from my perspective of talking to admissions peoples at the schools I’m applying to). It doesn’t hurt to call them or email them asking about graduating early.
If you do get in contact with admissions people, make sure that what you do will your time the semester that you have is something that contributes to you being a productive member of society. You said you want to work and possibly intern, and that’s totally great! With my semester off I am going to be working in retail, and also be interning at the hospital I volunteered for so long at (whoo for networking!).
You are going to get a mix of reactions and opinions about graduating a semester early but at the end of the day IT’S YOUR CHOICE. Always go with your gut and don’t regret it because by following your gut better opportunities will come your way.
Have you sought counseling for your depression. Your high school and town are easy excuses for a more deep seated problem. Without professional help those problems will likely follow you to college.
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@Maddy428 @whosaysyesss You both need to speak with health professionals and find a way to slow your life down to a healthy and manageable level. The unreasonable pressure and schedule will have long term effects on your health. Why would you do this to yourself. Life is not a race or a contest. Like I tell my kids, grasshopper, you must find balance.