<p>Will I have to maintain a high GPA or it just based on credits? Is it possible for a average student to do so?</p>
<p>In general, there’s no good reason to graduate early.</p>
<p>It is usually possible to graduate early. In my class of around 500 people, I know 4 off of the top of my head who are graduating a year in advance.
It all depends on your school’s policies.
At my school, for example, any student can take courses during summer school and get enough credits to even potentially graduate within two years. Ask your counselor.
I do, however, personally second halcyoheather’s reply. Think about your reasons very seriously before graduating early. It doesn’t help much with college admissions and it is one less year of free education.</p>
<p>I think it would depend upon the county/state in which you are located. It is quite easy to do at my children’s school. They are required to graduate with 26 credits. Students who pass each course earn 8.5 credits a year. After 3 years, that would mean the “average” student would have 25.5 credits. Students are required to have 4 years of English. That means you would need to double up on English during your last year OR you would have to go to summer school. </p>
<p>Where we live, the top students do not opt for this option, it is generally the middle kids that chose to do this.</p>
<p>At my school you can either choose to graduate a year early or a semester early but have to have the principal’s approval (just for doing it a year early). You have to write as essay explaining why you want to graduate early, and the most frequently used reason is to join the military. You still have to fulfill all graduation requirements though obviously. I wouldn’t advise this because even if you do get all your credits in your first 3 years of high school you can still take APs and dual enrollment classes for free (at least in my state DE is free, but have heard some are not) for your last year instead of paying 1000s of dollars down the road to take them in college.</p>
<p>It’s going to depend a great deal on your local schools, and the classes you need to complete - how many credits, and what specific credits? Some schools will allow the use of summer school, others will not. My oldest attends a school requiring 25 credits - 1 more than can be earned in 3 years - but only allows summer school for credit recovery, and remediation, not for enrichment or to get ahead. Summer classes could be taken elsewhere, and transferred in, with approval. The only department requiring 4 credits is English, so you’d need to double up, usually the 3rd year. My other daughter’s school requires 4 credits each of English, Social Studies, Lab Science, Math and Engineering - there’s no way to finish in 3 years.</p>
<p>The reasons for doing so are also going to vary. At some schools, the offerings are very slim, and you could run out of reasonable choices early. At others, there is so much available you can stay around and earn your first year worth of college credits (and more). Our first HS allows students to take one community college class per semester free, but the process is not easy, and I don’t know of anyone doing it - D wanted to a year ago, but couldn’t find out how to register through her HS. Several of their AP offerings are dual-enrollment, which cost about $100 per college credit, relatively cheap, but not free.</p>
<p>The other HS is sponsored by a local private college, is building a new facility on campus, and will enroll students in their classes once they “run out” of classes offered by the HS. The HS won’t offer AP science classes, because students will instead take college classes, at no cost.</p>
<p>The state will soon be increasing the graduation requirements for all schools, and it will then be more difficult to graduate in 3 years - early graduates will be those who skipped grades earlier (and even that has become increasingly rare).</p>
<p>Graduating a year early is certainly possible; a lot of people on CC and I are capable of doing so; however, it’s just not reasonable. I want to enjoy high school as much as possible and take all the classes that I want to take along with being in the Fine Arts Center and Governor’s School.</p>
<p>I agree with Secoja in that most of us can probably graduate in 3 years. Some of us probably did. I know a friend who tried too, but failed. Why? Because she overworked herself. Her grades already weren’t stellar and she had a lot of EC’s already, trying to impress colleges. I kept telling her that it wasn’t worth it and she finally cracked but was too ashamed to tell anyone. </p>
<p>Take as many classes that interests you in high school. Colleges are looking for motivated people but they’d rather take the 4-year high school student with a stellar transcript and EC’s coupled with an essay that showcased how they matured rather than the 3-year high school student whose grades are slipping and is too tired to really put all his/her energy into college apps. </p>
<p>If you can skip/test out of a grade, then fine. But that should never ever be your goal from the beginning. There will also be repercussions in the future. I’m already experiencing this as I’m the youngest in my grade and there are sooo many things that my classmates/age group can do in which I can’t. I plan on taking a gap year to make up for the difference so that I’ll be able to enjoy a social life as well as catching up on what I’ve missed in that one year. </p>
<p>There are also many, many opportunities that are open to high school students that aren’t available to college students. I plan on taking advantage of this. You should too! </p>
<p>Here’s a personal-ish story. I actually had the chance to go to college last year and just forget about high school grads. I turned it down. Why? Because it wasn’t worth it. Sure, I might have been able to join the work force A LOT sooner than the rest of my friends, but I choose to stay in high school because there was just so many things that I would have missed. No, I’m not talking about prom or senior pranks or anything like that. I’m talking about the simple things like being able to build a network of friends and experience the good teachers and bad teachers. I also won a scholarship for a trip to Korea that was only available to high school students and I would not have discovered it had I chose to go to college.</p>
<p>Let me tell ya, if you think that being in a higher grade while also being the youngest is cool, it’s not. At least when you’re trying to find friends. Most people, even on the internet, will say that, yeah, they’re really smart, but if they personally knew, say, a 10-year old in his/her senior year of hs, that kid will probably be shunned out by the rest of the grade. They may attract attention, may get ooh’s and aah’s, but they will definitely not get invited to places and outings and such. Will that kid be happy? Depends on his/her priorities. But it sure sucks to never be able to “fit in” and build a social network. I know that’s a bit extreme, but my point is, there’s a lot more than just graduating early for the “I’m special” feeling. </p>
<p>I have two friends who completely skipped high school and went to college. Sometimes, they regret it because they can’t find many friends in there. Sometimes they don’t because they already can already test out of most high school courses and so, intellectually, this was the best path for them. I also have another friend who’s graduating early, but that’s only because she wants to be a professional ice skater. All three of these friends have one thing in common in that they all have one thing that they are really good at. The first can already code from a very early age and the other is into robotics and art and have won competitions from an early age too. I also think I have another friend who put high school on hold because she models professionally.</p>
<p>I’m not trying to shoot you down and insult you (although you can clearly see my bias). I’m just saying that, unless you have a really, really, really good reason such as, you can already make your own sustainable income or you’re just insanely smart and are the heir to a company or you go to a specialized school with a predetermined career in mind, then the benefits widely overcome the cons. As you can see, one of my friends has her own income; the other three went to a specialized high school; two are insanely smart. All four are really rich though- although that might not pertain to your situation. </p>
<p>Just enjoy your youth while you have it, okay? Even if your parents disagree with you, remember, this is YOUR life. You get to choose what’s best for you, whether it’d be graduating early or not. Also, here’s a twist on that famous question: “will this backfire on me 5 years from now?” </p>
<p>Gahh, lengthy post. Sorry, my mouth usually runs ahead of me.</p>
<p>Yea it’s very possible. If I took general government/econ next year instead of AP Stats (I’m doubling up with Adv Pre-Calc) I would be able to graduate by the end of my junior year. I choose not to because high school is free and I want to stay in school with my friends and I want to be able to participate in sports and such. Also because I have enough credits to graduate early, when I actually do graduate at the normal time I’ll get more graduation rewards such as 400 credits club and I’ll get a business scholar and computer science scholar, and 5 years of science, ect. I also wouldn’t want to miss out on my last chance to play high school sports, as I don’t think I’ll be good enough to play in college (unless I walk on at least). I think theres way more pros to graduating at the normal time then graduating early so if I were you, because if I’m in the situation that I can, I would recommend just sticking it out. In the end you’ll be more happy with yourself.</p>