Hello, I’m moving to Missouri for my senior year and I’m from Southern California. Rather than start over at a new high school all together I decided it’d be best to finish my high school career with an online high school. Does it look bad that I essentially “dropped” the IB/AP programs and did classes online? How would this looks in terms of admissions? I plan on working full time at a research lab also when I move to Missouri, so that would be a bonus I suppose. But generally, is shifting to an online high school program your senior year okay?
I think colleges will understand you not wanting to put yourself in an entirely new school senior year, and moving was out of your control. As long as you have good self-motivation, switching to online shouldn’t hurt you, and you can still take AP/IB classes at online schools.
You’d need to find a reputable online school that offers plenty of AP/IB classes. You may want to register as homeschooled at your Missouri location, so that you can take community college classes for free - this would complement your virtual schooling, would be more social, and would allow you to continue with your EC’s.
Mizzou online K-12 has an really good online high school program. Check it out - it may even be free for Missouri residents, but I am not sure.
U Nebraska, Indiana U, Stanford, and MS State all have distance learning high schools, if that’s still under consideration. We’re using IU, about halfway through a couple classes, and so far so good. Kid is happier and learning more than before.
Brigham Young University also offers online high school courses. (A former classmate of my daughter’s took some courses from them – recommended by the local public high school.)
You should find an online school that offers strong coursework. Hopefully as strong as the school you are leaving, but you need to definitely be able to say on college apps that the coursework at the online school was better than what you could have gotten at your new local high school. If the online school is less rigorous than your new local high school, you should probably go to your local high school.
My daughter is at an online school, and their graduates do very well in college admissions. You should definitely look for a school which is connected to a school already, has a great reputation, is accredited, and offers challenging coursework. We like Dwight Global Online School. Check it out at www dot dwight dot global . Stanford Online High School is another good one that we thought about.
I think it’s fine, especially with the research position also! 
DD attended online school all four years of high school. If hers did not offer a particular AP course she took it elsewhere. The trick is finding a place to take the AP Exams and you need to call around early to find schools that allow non-students to take the test there. There are a number of excellent online programs that offer pretty much any AP course you would want to take. She was admitted to UCLA, Fordham, UGA and Hofstra so far and waitlisted at Chicago and Georgetown (waiting for results from Cal, Stanford and Ivies).
It’s a good move to be honest. Plus, taking online classes is harder than taking classes in a classroom. It’s basically one reason why many people choose class lectures over online lectures.
@EmptyNestin2017 Any updates? Congrats on the acceptances so far!
depends on how much of a self-starter you are though? i took a semester of online classes, and man, was i distracted.