<p>Hello, I am currently in the summer after sophmore year of high school. I was wondering if I should graduate early. I haven't discussed to my counselor if it's possible but i'm pretty darn sure I could graduate my junior year if I planned to, but should I? I would really like to go to a school in California but I'm not sure how well it would work if I graduate early. What grades would they be looking at if I applied? I find it really hard to find anything relating to a junior graduating highschool then going to college out of state so hopefully you guys could help me out. </p>
<p>Also, unrelated, but am I able to take the ACT/SAT this summer (summer after sophmore, before junior) and have it count as my real score when I apply for colleges?</p>
<p>EDIT: Hmm, I should've added more in what I would like to know. Well I want to know if I decide to do this early graduation, what colleges do you guys recommend that's in california? preferably l.a. Should I be looking more towards community colleges? Do community colleges have dorm though? Will my scholarship opportunities be affected if I graduate early? Is there a way I can apply to colleges but if I don't get accepted I can just go to another year of highschool and apply later?</p>
<p>A few questions here:</p>
<p>1) Why do you want to graduate early?<br>
2) What is your family’s financial situation? How much can they pay for college?
3) What are you planning to study/hoping to do professionally?</p>
<p>The next step is research:
- Check out the Common Data Set and the admissions requirements for the schools you are considering applying to. You can google this information. It will tell you what courses you need to have completed, to be considered for admission at each school and what the stats were for the people who were accepted (test scores, GPA, class rank).
- Next, go talk to your parents and your guidance counselor. The former will tell you what they can afford and what they expect of you. The latter will certainly have talked to kids who want to graduate early and can give you advice.
- Once you have everyone’s input, you can plan properly.</p>
<p>You can take the ACT whenever you want to. You just have to be willing to pay the fees, and have a way to get to the exam site. If you take it this summer, you can use it for your applications.</p>
<p>Many colleges and universities do not require that you have a high school diploma before you enroll. They will admit any student who they believe to be “college ready”. Some will admit students as young as 9th grade age. For some ideas read this: [Hoagies</a>’ Gifted: Early College Entrance Programs](<a href=“http://www.hoagiesgifted.org/early_college.htm]Hoagies”>Early Entrance College Programs | Hoagies' Gifted)</p>
<p>If you apply for early entrance, but you don’t get in anywhere that you’d like, or you change your mind in the middle of the process, you could certainly stay in high school for another year. The details of that would need to be worked out with your guidance counselor.</p>
<p>The community colleges in California have very specific enrollment requirements. Check the websites of the ones that might interest you, and make certain that this plan of yours would work. Some do have dorms, again you can find that out from their websites.</p>
<p>If you are just kind of fed up with high school, and ready to do something different, you don’t necessarily need to start college early. You might prefer a study abroad program such as [AFS</a> Intercultural Programs](<a href=“http://www.afs.org%5DAFS”>http://www.afs.org) or [Youth</a> For Understanding](<a href=“http://www.yfu.org%5DYouth”>http://www.yfu.org) </p>
<p>There also are several threads on this topic in the Parents Forum. If you go to that forum and scroll through the older threads, you will find more links that are useful to you and your family.</p>
<p>Wishing you all the best!</p>