My child is considering graduating early after junior year to pursue Olympics or World Championships. GPA 4.3, decent test scores, AP classes, volunteer work. To get into the most competitive school possible what is the best course of action? Gap year? Don’t graduate early but do online school? Reach World Championships etc then apply? Might end up being a two year gap year situation - what kind of study would be best to pursue while training during the 2 year period? Advice greatly appreciated. Thanks!
If a child is training for Olympics then that is what they have dreamed of their entire life. So many hours, so much sacrifice. There are thousands of colleges, many will consider your child a prize. It is an absolute positive to defer college admission until your child can realize their dream
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Get recruited for their sport? I am not an expert on these matters but wish your child well. A lot of top student athletes from our school that went to most competitive schools (as you call them) continued with their studies at school and were recruited by said competitive schools. There were some (tennis players come to mind) that had to do online school in order to make top rankings with participation in different tournaments. And that’s all I know. Good luck to your student.
I agree with @Campbell281. You will hear “Olympic athlete” bandied about here, almost in jest along with Nobel Prize Winner, as a highly desired hook for college admissions. It’s so pie in the sky for most of us that I would be surprised if you will find someone with that experience on CC. I hope I am wrong!
In your shoes, I would choose whichever academic approach (graduate early, cyber school, etc.) best supports his athletic goals, then let the chips fall from there. A wonderful college — whether it is Penn or Penn State in terms of selectivity — will offer him a great experience once he is done chasing his dreams.
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If your child also wants to compete in college, make sure you know the NCAA eligibility rules. If student does graduate early and starts taking college classes, the eligibility clock starts running (usually 5 years to play 4 seasons). If student doesn’t take classes, then the clock is paused.
You might also want to work with the current school to set up how to get letters of recommendation, GC reports, etc. if the child does take a gap year or two, take ACT/SAT tests as a junior, just get everything lined up. May not need them, but best to have them lined up.
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My daughter’s friend was in the winter games in Beijing 
She did all of high school online (no choice because of her training schedule) and also graduated a year early. If I recall correctly, she competed in the Olympics following her early graduation. She took the following year off entirely and is applying for colleges right now. Olympic athlete is very much a hook for many selective colleges - former Olympians of this particular sport have typically ended up in Stanford, Yale, and other T20s…and frankly without many other really extraordinary accomplishments than Olympic athlete. That seems to be quite enough! So if your child makes it to the Olympics, they’ll likely do very well come college admissions time, whether they decide to graduate early or not.
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Graduate early and then apply after accepted to Olympics or World. The tippy-tops love Olympic athletes, even though they aren’t necessarily recruited athletes to play at the tippy-top.
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This feels like a question for an admissions director/expert, to be honest. Not sure many of us have been in your situation. 
(Congratulations!)
That said, the one situation I do know something about is that Eileen Gu graduated HS a year early so she could focus on the Olympics last year, but she was already admitted to Stanford—she just deferred enrollment for a year and matriculated this past Fall.
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Your child is in a select group if they are competing at such a high level. The two students I know that competed in the Olympics were recruited by D1s, accepted their offer, and then deferred starting. Neither graduated early but one did on line school with a tutor so they could travel internationally and the other went to a special school designed around the sport.
Is your child in contact with any college coaches? If so I would get guidance from them.
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Is this sport an NCAA sport that your student would participate in while in college? If yes, I would talk with coaches now to get their advice. And pay attention to NCAA rules.
Any insights @dadof4kids?
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From the way things are worded I’m guessing it’s an individual (or maybe pairs) sport? For that I think you’ve gotten good advice from all posters. If it’s a team sport that is also offered at the collegiate level, then you’ve also been getting good advice (talk to coaches etc.) I think the only possible scenario that holds a small amount of potential risk is for a team sport that is not offered at the colleges of interest, for which there is a chance the kid will not be accepted onto the Olympic team, and therefore has a little less to show for the time off. In that case, I do think the level of kid’s athletic commitment is still close to “amazing hook” level but the scenario warrants closer attention to how the gap year vs. graduating early scenario is handled. Good luck!
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We are going though a variation of this as well for my child, in a non-recruitable sport. First, is your sport recruitable or non-recruitable? That makes a difference. If recruitable, contact coaches at some of the schools that interest your kid to see what path previous students took to get to that school.
In my kid’s case, we are doing an independent study school with online dual enrollment college classes. The goal is to graduate with an Associate’s Degree when graduating from high school. In our case, because my kid travels a lot to compete and train, lab sciences are not an option. (The minimum bio/chem/physics courses were taken earlier in high school.) So to demonstrate rigor in another way, a DE AD is our wonky path. It’s not perfect, but when you can’t be on campus all the time, you have to figure something out.
Other students in my kid’s sport study entirely with an online curriculum. Stanford has an online high school some of them use, but it’s a competitive application process and costs enough money that we didn’t try it out due to paying for training expenses.
My kid’s senior year is next year and we might have to figure another school option due to exhausting most of our options at the current independent study school. It’s a puzzle. Hope that we can figure something out.
We do plan on applying to colleges next year. If we have to take a gap year and apply again, we will figure out which schools allow it and which don’t. I’ve heard that it’s easier to apply while in high school. Your case, however, may be different.
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Thanks! It is a non recruited sport
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Just FYI, Stanford Online High School does offer financial aid to students who qualify.
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My experience is with athletes in a recruitable sport (wrestling). The Greco Roman athletes who are World Team level aren’t necessarily at the D1 podium level (Freestyle wrestlers almost always are), but even so there is enough overlap in skillsets that they are still recruitable.
This isn’t exactly in answer to your question, because I don’t have good information. Just a bit of general advice on the situation. My son is in a situation where the Olympic Team is a stretch goal, but not a dumb one. He has debated what to do, because there is no money in his sport, and frankly he is sick of being a broke college student, and always a bit beat up from practice and competition. My advice to him has been that there are tens of thousands of kids in his sport that had that same dream he did since he was 5 years old. For most of them, it’s an impossible dream. He is in the fraction of a fraction of a percent where there is a realistic, although by no means certain, path to get there. Take your shot. You still have 40 years to be a working adult when you are done. But your window for this opportunity is vanishingly small. Prioritize doing what you can to take your shot. I don’t think many people would regret that.
Also makes for a pretty compelling essay imho. I know that the standard advice is to avoid athletic essays, but an essay about putting your life on hold to take a shot at your dream, even if it doesn’t ultimately work, is a lot different than the typical essay about the “big game.”
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Totally agree with this. If you can, take your shot. Athletic windows are sometimes short.
If schools are turned off by essays where you discuss how you balanced academics and a long-shot Olympic-level goal, which is essentially your lived truth, then those schools aren’t listening to a tiny but no less authentic cohort of applicants.
Frankly, sometimes academia doesn’t process the high-level athletic training experience all that well. Some academics never had a sporting experience (busy pursuing other ones). There can be the mistaken perception of being a “dumb jock” with an easier path to a school admission. That doesn’t track with, for example, an engineering student who also play D1 hockey.
But for non-recruitable athletic families trying their best to foster an elite athletic training experience while also navigating high school, it’s tough. The cliche of not being able to participate in school activities due to sports scheduling is real. And can be mistaken as some sort of “privileged” position instead of the insane time/money suck that it is (with an unpredictable ROI). Frankly, sports at a high level garners some atypical growth experiences that most high schools simply can’t provide.
We just came back from a tour of a rigorous, well-regarded college. (Our first official college tour.) It was very helpful. The general presentation slide deck laid out what completed high school courses are the minimum ones expected for the school’s applicants. Technically, our student happens to have completed them already. Doesn’t mean that the average applicant to this school won’t be well passed the minimum course load. However, it does mean that our athlete isn’t out of range of their expectations.
What if you tried contacting five schools that your kid is interested in? Email the admissions office and ask for their feedback on what the impact would be with your various scenarios/graduation timeline. See if there’s something that they wouldn’t recommend. Might as well get input straight from the source.
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