<p>This question is similar to my earlier post, but reedited. The question now is, if a junior and a sophomore both apply to college with exactly the same credentials, will one be discriminated against another? I'm just planning my college route.</p>
<p>For your information, I have passed my IGCSEs (O-Levels). I have 2000+ in both my SAT I and SAT II (Physics, Chemistry, Math II). I have not taken my APs, but I plan to take them next year. For my ECs, I have participated in national level competitions. I am not exactly the top, but I am among the top. I have also held leadership posts in my school.</p>
<p>For your information, I may target UCLA and Cornell. I have other colleges in sight too, but I'd like to highlight these two first.</p>
<p>Also, when colleges say that applicants should have completed, let’s say, 3 years of English, do the years from elementary and middle school count? Or must those 3 years be exclusively high school?</p>
<p>As for automatic discrimination - not necessarily. It depends on the individual characteristics of the students. These “exact same credentials” questions are meaningless because no two individual applicants will ever have the exact same credentials. However, there are two ways to look at it: If a sophomore applies with junior credentials, that may be evidence that the high school curriculum is slowing the sophomore down and they really need to go to college. Or the college may think that 15-16 is too young and immature (or they don’t want to deal with the legal hassle) but 16-17 is a better age to start at their campus. It depends on the school, but broadly speaking, probably not.</p>
<p>If you really want to go to college early, the best thing may be to apply in your 10th grade year and see what happens. If you get in somewhere good, great; if not, then apply again 11th grade and see what happens then.</p>
<p>When colleges say 3 years of English and math, they are typically talking about high school. Middle school classes may count if they are on the high school level - for example, some advanced math students may take algebra and/or geometry in middle school, and that would count. Some students also may take the first year or two of foreign language in middle school and that would also count. Elementary school wouldn’t count at all.</p>
<p>However, some colleges will make exceptions for truly exceptional students, especially if they are open to admitting 10th and 11th graders. They’ll understand that you don’t have 3-4 years simply because you don’t have time, but if you are sufficiently prepared to begin on the college level, then it won’t matter. It just that <em>typically</em> it takes a student X amount of years of a certain subject to be successful in that college’s curriculum, but there are many talented students who may be prepared with less.</p>