<p>I will be graduating from high school a year from now after my junior year. I will have all the required/recommended classes for Tier one schools, with several APs, almost all As, three university classes and a decent extra curricular record. I currently have 2310 on the SAT. I am wondering how elite/ Ivy League schools will view me since I will be young (just turning 17 when I enter college) and I finished high school early. Any suggestions on how to address this as a positive attribute on my application?</p>
<p>They see it a lot. I don’t think they’ll think it’s extraordinary. I was barely 17 when I started at my Ivy alma mater a generation ago. My brother-in-law was barely 17 when he started at the same institution a few years later. I knew people there who had been younger than I as freshmen.</p>
<p>It’s probably something they’ll notice. I don’t think you can leverage it for very much, though.</p>
<p>Thanks Sikorsky for your reply. It would be great to leverage it if possible, but if not, I just want to make sure that it’s not considered a negative.</p>
<p>Honestly, I don’t know whether it’s a liability or not. I don’t know whether my experience in the 1980s has any relevance now. And I don’t know whether younger applicants were admitted at a rate any different from the general population then, or whether they are now.</p>
<p>If you’re concerned that admissions committees might not take you as seriously as your competitors because you’re younger than most of the applicant pool, I recommend you discuss the matter with your guidance counselor and the teachers who will be writing your teacher recommendations. You can ask them whether they would mind including an observation about your academic maturity to help counter any bias an adcom might have against younger applicants.</p>
<p>You can also look online, including elsewhere on CC, for information about well respected colleges known for accepting younger applicants. I know that in the '80s Oberlin would even accept applications from juniors who would not be graduating–one of my siblings went there without a diploma after the 11th grade–and it still does now.</p>