I'm accidentally a senior (?)

Pre-College Issues High School Life
1

<p>I'm not exactly sure where this discussion should fall under but I would like some help determining what I should do.
First, let me explain my situation. In a nutshell, by taking extra courses on FLVS (I am a Florida resident so FLVS is free and I don't like to be bored) starting the summer before eighth grade and by being in the most difficult math track I could very easily graduate a year early. So let me inform you as much as I can:</p>

<p>Classes I have taken :
Grades are not listed because I have never received a "B" in my life.
7th:
Algebra I Honors (4.5)
Chinese I (FLVS, I thought it would be a fun course to take) (4.0)</p>

<p>8th:
Algebra II Honors (4.5)
Spanish I (I realized that it would be difficult to learn Chinese due to the fact that I didn't know anyone who spoke Chinese) (4.0)</p>

<p>9th: (I entered into the Pre-IB program)
Pre-IB English I (4.5)
Pre-IB German I (4.5) (I though German would be cool, and I didn't want to be bored retaking Spanish 1 for IB)
Pre-IB Biology I (4.5)
Band (4.0)
Piano (4.0)
Pre-IB Geometry(4.5)
Pre-IB American Gov't (a half semester class) (4.5)
Pre-IB Economics (half semester class) (4.5)
Driver's Ed (I took it on FLVS to keep insurance costs down for my permit) (4.0)</p>

<p>10th:
Pre-IB English II (4.5)
Pre-IB German II (4.5)
Pre-IB Chemistry I (4.5)
Band (4.0)
AP Music Theory (5.0, AP scores will be listed later)
Analytic Geometry (5.0, half semester class)
Pre-Calculus (5.0, half semester class)
AP World History(5.0)
AP Computer Science (4.0 I got A's both semesters but apparently my school wouldn't give me the AP weight ??) (This was taken on FLVS because I'm good with languages and my dad writes code so I thought it would be fun. Due to taking this class I am seriously contemplating majoring in Computer Science and minoring in a language)</p>

<p>AP Scores:
World History 4
Music Theory 5 (4 aural, 5 non-aural)
Computer Science 5</p>

<p>Class rank: Top ten out of a 500ish class. Ironically taking all of these classes has brought my GPA down because they are all unweighted. My school goes off of semester grades too, so even though I only get all "A"'s every quarter, people ahead of me can get an A and a B one semester and have it average to an A. Unfortunately, literally everyone ahead of me has gotten at least one quarter grade "B" and I am still behind them because of the whole round an A and a B to an A thing.</p>

<p>GPA: 4.0 unweighted 4.46 weighted</p>

<p>Other things to consider (extra-curriculars):
- I am very active in my youth group and we often do service projects
- Seminary (2 years completed thus far). Seminary is a before school bible study program for high school students at my church. In order to attend every morning before school I have to wake up at 5 am so I can be there by 6 (it goes from 6-6:45), and I usually arrive at school by 7-ish.
- Marching Band (I play the trumpet)
- I help elementary students learn how to play the trumpet in the summer
- I am a two time State placer for Women's Wrestling for the State of Florida. 9th grade year I placed 3rd, and 10th grade I placed 1st for the 97 lb weight class. I started wrestling for fun in middle school and I decided to stick with it. I am currently the only girl on the team, and I wrestle against guys (9th grade I had a positive JV season against boys, and 10th grade I had a positive Varsity season against guys at the 106 weight class).</p>

<p>This leaves me with a total of 19.5 credits so far. Currently I am taking AP Statistics on FLVS for fun. In order to graduate I need 2 English credits, American History, and 1 P.E. credit.</p>

<p>These are my three options as I see them: Please respond with which option would be the best in terms of college admission, and what your personal opinion is.</p>

<p>1) Graduate class of 2014 ( a year early). Drop out of IB program and take all the classes I need at the high school. This would definitely be the easiest course load but I'm not sure if I would be able to dramatically change my schedule like this. </p>

<p>2) Graduate class of 2014. Stay in the I.B. program and since I am already scheduled to take IB/AP American History I would just pick up a P.E. class and an English class on FLVS. Definitely an extremely difficult course load that would stretch me very thin, with the advantage of keeping my friends and teachers, plus it looks awesome on a college application.</p>

<p>3) Graduate normally, class of 2015. If I take a FLVS class next summer (I've had my eye on AP Psychology) I would graduate with 35.5 credits. 35.5 credits is like 5 years of highschool!!! I don't know if my school would even let me do this, and I don't know what colleges would think.</p>

<p>My personal 2-bits:
To graduate class of 2014 I would have to decide immediately and seriously prepare for the SAT/ACT. I want to apply to several school, but my top three are UF, BYU, and then my dream school MIT. In order to apply to MIT I would need to study for two additional AP subject tests (1 math and 1 science). I am LDS, so BYU would be an awesome church school filled with like minded people and the tuition would be very low. For UF, my grandfather lives there and used to teach there (he was a professor for 40+ years) and I would love to be by him. Plus instate would be cheap, and if I got bright futures college would be basically free, but I heard they were making cuts to their computer science program (?). MIT is my dream school, and even though it is expensive I would love to go, but I want to continue to do the best thing for my admission chances there.
Other factors:
- Graduating early means I'm 1 year ahead of everything
- I am not really sentimental for the "high school experience"
- I am a pretty responsible person, so I think I would be able to handle living alone
- I am pretty bored in high school. I mean there is a lot of home work and I am really busy with extra curriculars but content wise I get stuff pretty easy and I don't really need to try to "get it" I guess (one of the reasons I would love to go to MIT is because I want to be challenged and learn to work with people like me)
- What about my friends? I only have a few really close friends, but they mean a lot to me. Of course we could always talk long distance and keep in touch but I know its not the same.
- If I graduate early I have to rush to take my SAT's and start applying to colleges.</p>

<p>Sorry for the super long read, but any input would be nice to know since I have to decide really really soon!!!! I never imagined in middle school that I would have to make this choice. Honestly the thought of skipping a grade or graduating early never occurred to me until TODAY, when I picked up my report card and I was like CRAP! 19.5 credits! I could be considered a senior!</p>

2

<p>Don’t graduate early… graduate with a lot of credits. That is what I am doing. Colleges will see you were only in high school for 4 years and they will be impressed you did that much extra.</p>

3

<p>Don’t graduate early.
How was AP Comp Sci on FLVS i’m thinking about taking it</p>

4

<p>Don’t graduate early. I was very seriously thinking of doing it but I realized that:
a) you have more time to build your college apps;
b) high school lets you experiment and do things in a way you can’t really do with college;
c) you can stay with your friends.</p>

<p>If HSL is not important to you and you’re not concerned about a or b, then go for it but I would not recommend it.</p>

5

<p>Yeah, it’d probably look more impressive if you just graduated on time with more credits.</p>

6

<p>Thanks for the input :). Weeknd I loved AP Computer Science on FLVS. It does require time like any real school course but it has a very high pass rate for people that take it, and obviously I did well on it. My teacher Mrs.Ross was very helpful and they have lots of review sessions before the AP exam. There are 20 modules (modules 10 and 20 are just the semester exams) and about 7-ish lessons per module, although it varies. Most modules involve submitting programs that you write for each lesson, with a few tests and multiple choice scattered through-out. The best part of it is that you can submit an assignment multiple times, so if you are stuck your teacher can give you hints.</p>

7

<p>I wouldn’t graduate early. But that’s just my two cents :P</p>

8

<p>That is incredible! What do you have to do to take classes online (sorry, just curious)?</p>

9

<p>toxiclance – Well since I am a Florida resident I simply made an account with my real student information on flvs.net and then I requested the course I wanted to take and my guidance counselor had to approve. You get to pick when you want to start the class after signing up so you just wait to get assigned a teacher, and if you don’t like the course you can drop out with no penalty after two weeks (it used to be 28 days but they recently shortened it). If you drop out past that date you will be assigned an “F” or non completion grade that goes on your transcript. There is a fee (I know its a lot but I don’t know what it is, $400 per semester maybe ?) for out of state residents, but some schools cover it.</p>

10

<p>Thank you very much! I think I found a site like that for Wisconsin, so I will definitely look into it! Thank you very much!</p>

11

<p>I think you should do what I did and don’t graduate. I applied to Caltech junior year, got in, and didn’t bother to get my diploma. If you will have almost all your IB classes by junior year, you may have a good shot at college already. If you don’t get in, you can stay an extra year and brush up on extracurriculars or take classes at a local college.</p>

<p>Note: check to see if your college of choice requires a diploma before attempting this strategy.</p>

12

<p>fizix2 - thank you for your advice, but I have never heard of just not getting a high school diploma. For me I think that wouldn’t be a good idea because literally all that I need to graduate is drop an elective and take an extra English class with my current schedule and take PE online.</p>

<p>toxiclance - Regarding your message, I am unable to reply to you directly because I don’t have enough posts. Since more talk about FLVS doesn’t specifically relate to my topic maybe you could message me your email address ?</p>

13

<p>Your W doesn’t really matter to colleges since its usually really inflated. Concentrate on maintaining a 4.0 UW, graduate is a crap load of credits, and you’ll be great.</p>

14

<p>If you are interested in graduating a year early, there are many universities that accept students who aren’t seniors such as Harvey Mudd.</p>

15

<p>Are you going to the same school as me?! Haha this is crazy literally everything you said pretty much sums up my school!</p>

16

<p>I don’t really have much experience on this topic, but If you graduate early how are you supposed to take the 3 HLs you need for the IB diploma? Colleges really prefer the diploma over simply taking some IB classes.</p>

17

<p>I didn’t read it all, but there’s generally no point in graduating early. If you stay in high school for four years, you’ll have more time to prepare for college admissions and you’ll be able to get lots of college credits at a reduced cost. </p>

<p>I suggest taking dual-enrollment classes if there’s nothing left for you to take. In my senior year, I’m taking all my classes at a state university even though I’m still enrolled in my high school. I could even live in the dorms if I wanted to. </p>

<p>

</p>

<p>Some others: Reed, Georgia Tech, Wellesley if you’re female. Most of these are LACs, though.</p>

18

<p>Wow, FLVS is free? With GAVS you have to pay several hundred bucks :/</p>

19

<p>Yakisoba, FLVS is only free for instate from what I know.</p>

20

<p>“take an extra English class with my current schedule and take PE online.”</p>

<p>How tf do you take PE online?</p>