Should I graduate High School early?

<p>Berkeley and Illinois are unlikely to mind if you graduate a year early. If you meet their standards for ECs, grades, and test scores, if you’re mature enough, go for it. Some at UMich graduated a year or even 2 years early. People say you can get anything out of high school that you can at those colleges. Well that varies greatly. You aren’t going to find research opportunities in most areas. You aren’t going to start on your career one year earlier. If you hate high school, there’s that too. </p>

<p>Dual enrollment is a nice option as others said IF you take classes that’ll transfer, and you take a variety that’s either not offered in your high school or is so remedial there that it’d be a waste of time. One option would be to dual enroll at a 4 year in driving distance, not a CC. There’s greater variety, the classes are more challenging, you get an idea of campus life. Since you asked about the work and schedule, I would say about 300-400 pages reading a week and the occasional paper. There might be like two tests and that’s your entire grade, so in that sense yeah you have a lot more freedom, but you still gotta study. What i did was (sometimes) show up for the hs class at around noon, then drive to campus. Ex: MW 2-5, TTH 3-5, T 6-10. Friday i’d have off, just skip hs class.</p>

<p>You could get involved at ECs (not athletics) on campus, which looks great for college apps too. You get to know profs who have worked the private sector. Just don’t tell anyone you’re dual enrolled and don’t put up with crap from hs teachers for entering the building at odd hours, skipping study hall etc.</p>

<p>Steel, according to what I provided, if I can follow that and do everything on there, do you think they might accept me. I may not even consider Illinois, I live in Indiana (1.25 hours from Purdue) so for Engineering, Ialways have Purdue. Purdue is #9 ranked of Engineering, Illinois is #6…for a 3 rank difference I would probably just stay in-state, might also be easier to get into. Do you think if I followed what I said, Purdue will accept me for Engineering Major? Also, since Berkeley is #3 and Purdue is #9, is it even worth it to go to Berkeley? How big would the quality of education be? Does it make a huge difference in pay? </p>

<p>Also, should I take Spanish 3 or just stop at Spanish 2?</p>

<p>Your e thinking too much. Youre a freshman. And graduating early may hinder more than help you. If you fond school too easy, you might want to work on developing more social skills, or have more Extra Curriculars.</p>

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<p>Stop lying.
A- youre a fresman, middle school relationships are cliche. Was there ever a girl yu liked/liked you. How do you know your parents will never let you date, they were.young.once. The school year just began. Has football even begun at your HS. And your prom isnt for years.</p>

<p>There’s some deeper issue behind all of this. Why do you want to leave HS early in all honesty? It may not be the best four years of your life but its pivotal to your development as a person. Dont worry about what MIT and Berkeley think. YOU ARE A FRESHMAN. THE PEOPLE WHO MAP OUY THERE LIVES ARE TGE.ONES THAT USUALLY FIND THEMSELVES OFF TRACK. relax and enjoy your years, amd get to the real issue of whats bothering you.</p>

<p>You may think that your parents wont let you have a social life, but you may be surprised. If you can handle schoolwork etc. theres no reason that your parents wont let you see a movie with that girl across the hall. Make the most out of your FOUR years. Cause looking back at it, you may regret not having a full experience</p>

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<p>Finally someone said something. OP, you’re obsessing over this. You are a freshman. You haven’t even had a month of school. You don’t know how this year is going to go. I suggest you do some research yourself in order to get a first hand idea of what you’re getting yourself into. It seems as you don’t know a single thing about college or high schools. Give your school a chance to show it’s resources. Don’t jump the gun, bro. </p>

<p>Have you even started high school? If not you seriously should stop obsessing about it.</p>

<p>TheAtlantic, Lets start off with something to you accusing me of lying. I’m Indian, I won’t get mad at you for calling me a lier right away, but maybe you should learn about Indian culture if you don’t know. They had an arranged marriage and they want me to (But I probably won’t), so I wouldn’t be able to date until college, even if I wanted to. There was a girl I liked, that doesn’t mean I would be able to ask her out. As for “developing my social skills”, are you thinking I am some socially awkward kid or something? I’m not, lets get that straight before you start attacking my social skills. I have a lot of friends, like If I had to sit an make a list, I could easily name 100-150 names. My social skills are fine, thank you.</p>

<p>Niquii, even though I’ve only officially been a freshman for a short while. In 8th grade I was able to take A math and science course at our high school, needing to be bused over everyday from my Middle School, because my middle school didn’t offer the courses I was taking. So I know some about the HS.</p>

<p>And I’m obsessing over this?? What, I’m not allowed to have questions? Or is it that I have an idea of the courses I want to take and the ECs? To know what I want out of life? What is it?</p>

<p>Things have taken a turn for the majorly bizarre.</p>

<p>CSIHSIS, I know. I had questions and wanted answers. Is there anything wrong with that? I don’t know where they came off by insulting my social skills and all the other stuff, like calling me a lier.</p>

<p>I never said you had bad social skills. I meant that if you were bored in class, you could use it as an opportunity to have more fun or do new things/meet new people. I never once said you had bad social skills so don’t start taking that personally. And since you have so many friends, that should be another reason for wanting to stay, don’t you want to graduate with them and have experiences like they do?</p>

<p>Secondly, maybe if you had been more clear as to why you felt this way (not just cause you’re “bored” or that your parents are strict) it would have come off differently and I would be able to give more accurate advice. So I apologize for not knowing the full context of your issue but it wasn’t stated specifically.</p>

<p>And finally. No matter what race you are, being 14 is way to early to think about “EVERY SINGLE” course you’re going to take. And talking about how you’re going to get into “Insert College Here”. I understand you are smart, and that you don’t think High School has anything to offer, but look at the big picture. You are 14 (or 13/15) focus on what you’re doing now. You don’t know what exactly you’ll get on every test or in every class. “You could live forever. But you still wouldn’t be able to predict anything in life.”</p>

<p>You are obsessing over the ordeal. Enjoy high school first. Worry about college second. Focus on the present. Otherwise High School will fly by and you’ll have no good memories of it. Enjoy it please, don’t make a decision you’ll regret. There’s more to life than MIT.</p>

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Acquaintances don’t equal friends in my book, but then again we are two different people. </p>

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You’re allowed to have questions. It just seems a little disorganized to me. You saying you’re graduating early because you don’t see what the big whoop is about high school, yet you haven’t been in high school (for a significant amount of time). </p>

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You have ambitions and goals. I can give you that. Good job. Maybe it’s the first post that had me thinking of you in a certain light. I just advise you to get some first hand experience on your options rather than second hand (dual enrollment, homework load, etc). </p>

<p>You ask a lot of questions which shows you don’t know. Nothing is wrong with not knowing, but asking people who could live 400 mi away. Not the best source of information when it comes to location specific rules and procedures. </p>

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Just an example.</p>

<p>And I undrstand your culture.fine. And i understand how you feel. We alll live in different places. Im a URM. In the southeast. Go to a suburban majority Black high school in a majority white county. Everyone here.has different questions and issues. And in no way did I mean to call you antisocial but i meant that because your parents dont allow you to have social time outside of school, you might want to enjoy that your senior year. (though I know nobody with 150+ friends. Thats a 3rd of my class). And you did lie in your OP when you said you were a junior. If you’re reallt popular, why do you want to leave all your friends?</p>

<p>I understand you have questions. im a freshman as well. But.these are things to worry.about Sophmore/Junior year. NOT when youre just.now transitioning into full on HS.</p>

<p>I understand youre a bright kid. But please attempt to keep a flexible outlook and open mind. :D</p>

<p>Im sorry if this came off as rude, but I believe that this is the truth. You are overthinking the whole thing. Just take your advanced classes do your ECs make your friends, and go to college. Trying to graduate eaely is just.complicating it. </p>

<p>Best of luck</p>

<p>I went to prep school 30 years ago; today a year of boarding school would cost $50K or more but many schools offer financial aid for strong students. Private day schools can also be an option. How was it? it was a huge academic adjustment, as I came from a really crummy public school, but it was amazing academically, too. I worked harder and learned more in that year than I did in the first 2 years of college. Socially, well, you’d be away from your parents and most boarding schools require athletic and community service participation and engagement in the life of the school community, so you’d have a “life” while getting a great HS experience. If your grades/scores are as good as you state, and you aren’t from a really wealthy family AND you can present this as a reasonable option to your parents, you might get some financial aid/scholarship help at the many many boarding schools out there.</p>

<p>While you can finish in 3 years, you will end up shortchanging yourself when applying to college. If you finish early, it will be because you crammed 4 years worth of academics into 3 years of school - what are you taking out in order to do that? Extracurricular activities, and summer experiences. You list your planned extracurricular activities during the year, but the summer is just as important. Colleges don’t want a drone who only knows how to study. They want someone who will be an active part of their community, and if you plan from the start to graduate early in this way, you are not making a true commitment to your current high school community. That doesn’t bode well for college admissions.</p>

<p>You also don’t know how cooperative your school will be with this plan. Yes, they allowed you to take HS classes this year. That doesn’t mean they will allow you to take your English Classes over the summer. In many school systems, those classes are only for those who have already taken the class and failed it the first time. It is not a full class, but an opportunity to make up the portion that was missed. You might want to check into that.</p>

<p>Also, have you shared this plan with your parents? It won’t work without their support, because they will have to pay summer school tuition, and they will have to consent to you leaving for college. What will you do if they insist once you graduate that you have to go to the local community college, and live at home, because you’re not 18?</p>

<p>Ok, I’m not getting into Friends and social things, but theres one thing I want to say. There is NOTHING wrong with having goals, absolutely nothing. I bet if you had to go on a long drive, you don’t just hop into your car and start driving w/o directions. I bet you either look it up on google maps or put it into your navi. I bet you pack, get water or food or something. You PLAN. I’m planning what courses I want to take, the things I want to do, the test scores I want to achieve, nothing is set in stone, but im just trying to prepare to get to my destination. It’s like asking, “is this the best route to get here”, thats what I’m asking, is this the best way to achieve my goal. Of course, either way you have to enjoy the drive, which I will, but you still prepare to get there.</p>

<p>I umderstand completely whereyoure.coming from, do you even know if your school system will allow you to do this though, let alone your parents. And like CTS said. Collehes dont necessarily love you for finishing early, sometimes its frowned upon. But plannng things 3 years ahead when you dont even know whats going to happen in the next semester isnt good. And like it was said before, yoyr school might not even let you take those summer courses. Make sure you understand the full scale of what youre doing and that you make a choice that aligns with whats right for you, not whats right for MIT</p>

<p>Good luck either way though</p>

<p>As for the courses that I listed, I am 100% sure I can do it because I already looked it up and researched all that for my district. My parents are fine with me doing it, and they know what I want to do. Once again, I said its an outline, the courses should be feasible, I already know most of them are possible for me to do.</p>

<p>Here’s the problem with your plan. Plans don’t work out. The vast majority of high schoolers out there don’t get to take every single class they planned on taking because of scheduling issues. Many classes are offered one or two periods a day and many of the classes those people want to be taking are offered at the same time. No matter how talented you are, you cannot be in two places at the same time. Also, community colleges generally don’t accept high school freshmen. The earliest I’ve seen anybody take a dual enrollment course at my school was a sophomore. And that was an easier class (not lab sciences). Your comments clearly make you SEEM immature though I don’t know you so I wouldn’t be able to judge. For instance, you are getting into arguments with strange people on the Internet over how many “friends” you can list. That is not maturity. </p>

<p>Next, there is nothing inherently wrong with planning. But you’re at too early a stage to do so. I didn’t begin earnestly planning out my courses until I was a junior. MIT didn’t hold that against me and admitted me just the same. High school is a time to explore. I very much doubt that a high school freshman knows exactly what his/her major in college will be. You may think you do, but once you take some interesting classes in other subjects, that may and most surely will change. Especially once you realize that you aren’t as good as some subjects as you thought. </p>

<p>Finally, regarding your situation with your parents and the whole arranged marriage thing, remember this: We are in America. America is the land of the free. This is not India. To quote paraphrase a movie, “This is not the land where the sun rises. It is where it sets.” It is the difference between the extrema of east and west. One must adapt, or one must perish. Convincing your parents of this is your responsibility. There is nothing wrong with taking a girl out or going to the football game. Not “allowing” one’s child to do so is both irrational and uneducated - it is ethnocentric.</p>

<p>ptontiger, I go to one of the biggest high schools in the US. We have over 4700 students, almost 4800. We have plenty of teachers and I have very rarely heard of someone not getting into the class they wanted, there are some teachers that teach Just one course, to 8 class periods. I never said I wanted to do duel enrollment as a freshman, I was inquiring about it, so If I actually did it I would have an idea of what it is and what it is like, then I would do my own research.</p>

<p>As for being “immature”, go read my post, I even said I don’t want to get into an argument over it. They said (or it seemed) that I have bad social skills, I was proving I don’t. One line, I said one line regarding that and that’s it, I didn’t want to go further into it. </p>

<p>There’s a quote from Steve Jobs about doing what you love, “As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when it’s right.” Since a very young age I have loved engineering, I’ve loved the highest tech things, learning how they are made, seeing how they work, and loved working and learning about them. I’ve loved planning gizmos that I would want to make one day. Just because you changed what you wanted to major in many times doesn’t mean everyone will. </p>

<p>About arranged marriage, that won’t be happening with me. I am not getting an arranged marriage, regardless of my parents wishes for me to. You said this is America, the land of the free. Exactly, we are free to have our culture and you are free to have yours. Maybe you had a girlfriend because it was the norm. in your culture, that doesn’t mean the same for me, and I’ve noticed that with a lot of my Asian friends, we don’t have boyfriends or girlfriends, don’t think because you had a girlfriend it is necessarily part of the “high school experience”. If I don’t want to until I go to college atleast (and I don’t), thats my choice.</p>

<p>If your plan works out perfectly as you had planned it, then it is still inadvisable to graduate a full year early. As you said, you go to a big high school with many, many classes. There MUST be advanced classes you can take somewhere that would fill your senior year schedule. </p>

<p>Statistics show that many people change their majors even once they get to college. In fact, the majority of students switch out of their major after their first or second year. That’s why top colleges like MIT and the one I go to don’t require students to declare a major until sometime in their second year. YOU may feel like you want to major in engineering or whatever, but that MAY change whether you like it or not. For instance, many intro courses at MIT and other top schools are designed as “weeder” courses - they weed those people out who aren’t suited for engineering, which is a very difficult specialty. You may make it through those courses, you may not. It really depends on your ability, both natural and acquired. I think once you get into a top school, you’ll realize that it’s not high school anymore. You can’t get top grades by simply working harder and studying more. Only the best receive the top grades and most of those people are simply naturally good at it. You must know those people at your school - the whole Asians are better at math stereotype. So your intended major may or may be your final major AND it may NOT be your choice. I reiterate: high school is a time to explore. Even at MIT, you have to take the core curriculum, which includes humanities classes. So even if you’re a math/science genius, MIT still wants to see a well-rounded student in that he/she takes courses in literature, social sciences, etc. </p>

<p>Finally, I am glad that your perspective is different from your parents’. I completely understand that everything is your choice. However, let me get this straight right from the get-go. I am Asian (not Indian). I only dated twice in high school and regretted it once. So stop perpetuating stereotypes.</p>

<p>At a certin point, it’s not about planning. It’s about execution.
If you weren’t a freshman, posters would be saying, yeah? huh! Show us.
Until you can show us, you are just planning. </p>

<p>It’s ok to ask questions, but I don’t get the sense you came to the table with much understanding, nor that you are absorbing what posters are saying, despite many approaches. This is now NOT about defending yourself, your culture, your love of engineering, your conviction that you can do it and get into a great college, etc. It’s now about whether or not you are the sort of kid who picks up the ball himself and runs with it- or sits there planning and asking.
Good luck, but you need to research schools, the requirements, expectations, take the classes and perform, see if you can get into those math-sci ECs and move off the dime. Check back in a year.</p>

<p>Hey, I’m an incoming freshman and I was a lot like you this Summer. I planned out all the courses I wanted to take, requested info from colleges, etc. but then after I went to freshman orientation and my friends came up to me all excited to see me (and I thought they hated me, haha), I realized that high school was about a lot more than preparing for college. Leave all the college crap to the juniors and seniors. Just make sure you take the most rigorous courses you can without overloading yourself, get involved in your community, and have some fun. Remember, you’re plans could easily fall through. You don’t know how much homework, projects, etc. your teachers are gonna throw on you. Your fellow students might not elect you to the school senate. Just because you think you have the ability doesn’t mean they do. Lots of things could happen. You could end up becoming a pothead and not doing and barely passing high school. Not saying all potheads do, but that’s what happened to my uncle and he’s pretty smart. You may say no to drugs now, but things change. Just remember that. Now I think I’m being redundant, and this post probably isn’t well organized, so I’m gonna shut up.</p>

<p>You better have fun in high school young (wo)man. :D</p>