I would love to pursue a career in that, as I do enjoy business and have always had a knack for it, but I had not considered it till now. Thank you for the input, I will definitely look into it.
I am also considering applying next year to some less selective, in state colleges, (with Quest Bridge) and if I get in, maybe I will go, if not, I will continue my studies in HS, looking to out of state.
OOS will depend on two things:
Budget - we need a # - is it $5K a year or $20K or 60K - and you said up thread $5K, so it basically eliminates all short of miracle scholarships.
Your SAT
Youâre in Texas - you could get, for example, a full ride at Prairie View.
The Regentsâ Student Merit Scholarship is the Universityâs most prestigious award. The Regentsâ scholarship covers up tuition and mandatory fees, on campus housing, meals and books ($600 per semester) every academic year (excluding summer semesters). Regentsâ Scholars who are non-residents are eligible for an out-of-state tuition waiver. The criteria for the scholarship are as follows:
I never said â5kâ definitely in that range although. Iâm not sure where I mentioned that. I am a first gen college applicant and my family makes less than 65k a year. I have more than a 3.5 as of right now, and Iâm sure it will go up in the future.
Below I will list my credits:
8th: English 1 (highest my school offered), Algebra 1 (there was no honors), Art
9th: English 2, Algebra 2 (when registering there was an error and they placed me here), Biology, AP Human Geo (only AP offered to freshman as it was a small charter), Electives, PE credit, all required stuff
10th grade: I started late at school (family issues) and was not offered advanced credits, had to catch up leading to what I have now. (my counselor is giving me 2 credits because of my fluency, which I do not have to test for Spanish 1, and 2) English 3 (was originally gonna take AP lang this year), Geometry, Chem, World History, Spanish 3 advanced, English Electives, etc
Summer of 10th grade: English credits (extra not needed to graduate) History credits (not needed to graduate) Maybe Environmental science as well.
11th:(I can finally take as many APâs and Honors as I want) AP Lang, AP Lit (depending on what I take over the summer) Pre-Cal, Physics, AP Bio, U.S government+ Econ, U.S History (still deciding if I want to take this as an AP or not) etc
I want to add I was not able to take many of the APâs and classes I wanted to, not because I couldnât, but because of external circumstances and things out of my control. As a result of these cards Iâve been dealt, I am considering staying my senior year to complete more credits.
Please give me grace when responding as most of the non honors were not my choice.
This explains it perfectly. The kinds of schools that you are targeting, donât want people that can graduate. They want high school students who have made effective use of their time in high school and are âall around excellentâ.
At my childrenâs high school they, required summer assignments before getting into AP classes. In other words, you had to qualify to get into AP courses and get a teacherâs recommendation.
This school has a strong record of getting kids into Stanford, Harvard, Yale, and Princeton and our UCs. The students applying to these schools barely had time, in their class schedules, to fit the classes that were required by the universities.
This high school had a strong academic advising/counseling team, of about, nine full-time staff whose job it was to advise their students about: Diploma requirements, AP testing dates, National Merit qualifications, college and vocational tracks, parent meetings (with FAFSA, CALgrants, College Board, ED/REA definitions) about post HS plans, and mental health options. They were kept very busy advising our students and families.
My own (Ivy League) household had 3 kids in: sports, orchestra, part time jobs, volunteer positions, clubs, and scouts, while taking AP courses in Physics, Calculus, Chemistry, Art History, Literature, Foreign Language, and US History. Yes, they had middle school credits in foreign language and math, but those only counted to get them into the rigorous courses in high school. All of them received 1500s in their SAT scores. Our son only missed one question on his SATs and he got into Caltech. Our eldest had Harvard interviews and got in everywhere else.
Thatâs your competition. Thatâs why everyone here wants to inform you so that can succeed and not feel overwhelmed when you get into your college. It will be at a rapid pace and you will get your first non- A grades. In California, our kids are groomed for a rapid pace because a number of the schools are on quarter systems -10 weeks to prove that youâve met the grade requirements for the course. Again, this is your competition for schools like Yale.
Our middle daughter travels a lot, but she saved up a lot of money through part-time jobs and her current career. Travel is very expensive and if youâre low income, thatâs not going to happen.
Before we moved to Austin, we traveled many times. Iâve been to many countries and around 35 states, Also, my entire family is Latino and Iâve been to multiple Latin American countries.
I also want to thank you and everyone who has helped me with this question so far. It is much appreciated and has opened my eyes to many more things.
What would your 12th grade classes look like, should you stay in HS and complete 4 full years?
To give some more context: I am in clubs, will be in two NHSâs next year, volunteer, have ECâs outside and in school, do UIL, have projects in religious aspects, direct a fully operational website, often come early, and stay late completing rehearsals, and improving assignments and grades. That is just the tip of the iceberg concerning what I am willing to do to improve my overall chances, and make sure my application stands out. I am willing to stay more time in HS if that is what is best, Iâm just weighing my options and trying to figure out what to do.
I think Iâd add some APâs, do another math, and maybe another Yearbook class.
Itâs not a question of grace - but not having APs will halt you at the highest level schools because youâll lack rigor. It may not be your fault but thatâs irrelevant.
Also, Pre-Calc isnât enough for those schools.
And finally, I see no foreign language - if you are fluent in Spanish, then you should have taken French, as an example.
Your counselor is guiding you to graduate but you need to guide yourself to college. Those, in many ways, are two different things.
While Iâm glad you will be QB eligible, it will ikely be an issue there as well.
Honestly, based on this past message, but I donât see a way you can/should escape hs early. It would hurt your QB chances - immensely..
As noted, I think your ECs are not just outstanding but frankly impressive - and perhaps someone will take note of that - but typically ECs are a separator but not a substitute for less than necessary GPA or rigor, etc.
Iâm not sure what you mean. Is this considered credit by exam? Or is it simply advanced placement into Spanish 3? How does it appear on your HS transcript?
So, it looks like a lot of your extra classes/credits are actually planned for this coming summer and next year? To me, your planned 11th grade schedule looks a bit packed and I am not sure how you plan to fit all those classes into one year.
If you were my kid, I would suggest you spread out these courses over 11th and 12th. For example, take Lang and Lit in separate years, take History in a different year from Gov/Econ, take Physics and Bio in separate years, and you would also be able to take Calculus in 12th grade.
I also think you can probably find something more interesting to do over the summer than take high school classes. 
I agree that itâs unclear to the reader exactly why you want to graduate early. (Itâs clear why you can but thatâs not the same thing.) The interpretation that rings true to me, although I could be completely wrong, is that you havenât loved being a transplant to Texas, and want to get away to college sooner vs. later. If Iâm intuiting that correctly, another option you might want to consider is doing your fourth year of high school abroad. This can be done after graduating, as a âsuper-seniorâ year, or your graduation can be postponed until the end of your year abroad, but either way, it would allow you to build a stronger college application (via the rigor of that fourth yearâs coursework, the additional year to strengthen your GPA, and the growth experience of a year in a different culture) and potentially build on your extracurricular experiences, perhaps by being based in one of the countries in which your news site operates. AFS, for example, offers scholarships: https://www.afsusa.org/study-abroad/scholarships/#afs-nav-afs-global-citizen-scholarships-aid
In my opinion, something like this could be a win-win - you could finish your Texas high school experience early, and solve the problem of not having âanything substantialâ to do senior year, while still giving yourself time to build up to college admissions, rather than putting yourself at a disadvantage by cutting your high school years short.
Another, similar possibility would be to apply for a PG year at a boarding school. Many of these have great journalism programs (although you probably couldnât sail into a leadership position as a new PG student). Financial aid is possible, in general, but Iâm not clear on whether itâs likely for a high-need non-athlete to get a scholarship for a PG year. Could be worth looking into, though.
Re: the remark up-thread that Yale wouldnât be a good choice for an aspiring journalist, I have to disagree - I personally have a young (distant) relative who was Editor In Chief for the Yale Daily News and has been very successful in using that as a springboard to a career at a well-known publication, and Iâm sure theyâre not the first or the last to gain opportunities through their experience at such a prestigious college newspaper. That said, attending an Ivy League school isnât the only way to make that happen. As I already noted, Iâve seen grads who worked at The Student Life at the Claremont Colleges (which incidentially pays its staff - a nice perk for low-income students who would otherwise need a different paid job as well) break into the field with comparable success. And Iâm sure there are plenty of success stories from colleges that are much less competitive to get into. (The problem there being that most OOS publics wonât be affordable for you, and you donât want to stay in-state⊠but there are less-reachy privates that still give good financial aid, the Beloit suggestion up-thread being a case in point.) Regardless, thereâs nothing wrong with eyeing schools like Yale and Northwestern as âthe dreamâ and ranking them at the top of your Questbridge list, should you become a Finalist. Just donât buy into the idea that all is lost if you donât attend a single-digit-acceptance-rate college.
I think itâs important for you to research the Questbridge situation carefully. If an elite college is what you want, QB is the best way to maximize your chances. But Iâm not sure you can do Questbridge twice, should you not get the results you want the first time. I would get clarity on this up-front. It would be unfortunate to squander the Questbridge opportunity by applying early, and not being able to get a do-over if the partner colleges pass you over in favor of other candidates who have done the full four years of high school. In fact, even leaving aside Questbridge, âconventional wisdomâ here on CC holds that itâs much harder to get into any competitive college as a re-applicant who has already been turned down once. So, taking your shot early at your top choice schools may put you in a weaker position for another attempt.
As others have said, Iâm not trying to rain on your proverbial parade, vis-a-vis early graduation; I just think itâs important to understand the tradeoffs before deciding. Conversely, nothing you do for a 4th year of high school is going to guarantee admission to schools like Northwestern and Yale. Itâs just that, statistically speaking, early graduation increases the odds that your acceptances will come only from less-competitive schools⊠and deciding on a do-over because of that outcome will not provide a complete reset at schools youâve already applied to, and maybe not with Questbridge either. (I do think, though, that if you get into the Scholars program for juniors this year, you can probably get advice through that program, and still decide to postpone applying to the Match program until your fourth year if you go that route.)
The business+journalism idea is interesting. A double-major at a school like Northeastern could be quite doable, since the requirements for the journalism major arenât particularly heavy. They also offer combined majors with marketable skill-sets; the Data Science and Journalism major is one example.
Itâs good that youâre gathering information and advice now, when you have plenty of time to consider your path. Good luck!
I did start to take French, as I have always wanted to, but my french teacher started giving me problems a few weeks in, saying I shouldnât be in that class, and at one point wanted to leave me with a 0 for a semester, which I thought was unacceptable, what we came up with was that I should transfer into Spanish 3 advanced, because it would help my GPA. I did not originally want to be in Spanish, but it was the only other option. I also transferred out of that class because my mental health was suffering.
Not sure if that was something picked from me - but itâs not what was said/meant - but I donât see Yale giving a leg up was the point. The student can springboard from any school and honestly, any major.
The student has tremendous drive- and that will take them further than anything, especially in todayâs world where much of journalism is by contract.
I understand, etc. but youâre not going to get grace on these types of things from top schools.
You can ask your counselor to add this type of info onto their student report - but the schools will seek kids that have completed - and many schools (not saying the top) are resource constrained so when they read mental health struggles, it may be a reason to push one away because they canât handle the amount of struggles they have on campus and donât want to add more.
Bottom line - you need a Senior Year, you need to bump up your rigor and you (in my opinion) need at least two years of a language (not Spanish) to have a chance at a top school and / or full ride.
You have to remember - you are simply a name on an application. They have zillions of kids who have done the things they need to academically. These schools donât know you personally - donât see your drive and hustle in person - so itâs easy to set your application aside when so many other students have what they are looking for. And donât highlight challenges.
Depending on budget, there will be low cost opportunities - but not the premier type schools without those things.
Hence, leaving early, at least as I see it, would be harmful, not helpful to you.
Best of luck.
Same here. Iâm from the barrio, fluent in Spanish, but learned everything I could, in every subject, so that I would be prepared for major tests, as well as being eligible for scholarships. Not so fluent in French or sign language (ASL) anymore, but I can carry on a conversation in both.
My degrees didnât require Spanish certification, but the State of California did for my job, so I took advanced Spanish courses in written literature in college. Thank goodness for that because the âlanguage of Spainâ prepared me for my travel to Spain to meet my daughter (who was doing an internship in Madrid).
I hate tooting my own horn, but here it goes:
Husband is UC and Stanford engineering grad.
Eldest daughter majored in EECS-electrical engineering and computer software.
Middle daughter attended med school pharmacology and is in big pharma.
Son is a computer software engineer.
Iâm a retired speech pathologist.
Our high schools prepared us academically, for success in college and beyond.
I love the idea of studying abroad for a year! that honestly sounds like a dream! I have considered this route many-a-time, but unfortunately, I donât know how double it would be thanks to my low- income situation, and most of the programs I have seen I too much money.
Also, I mentioned before I would love to attend many other schools that have Journalism/English programs, not just Yale or Northwestern. I have many schools that I am considering, especially North, or New England as I love that area and donât mind the weather.
I recommend that you donât take summer classes at all, unless they are requirements that would otherwise take up valuable space in your schedule that you would want to use for more advanced or interesting course work (example: my kids took all of their PE and Health classes online in the summer). Summer classes really wonât provide the same experience or education that semester- or year-long classes will. Even if you get the same credit, you wouldnât get the same benefit. And from most collegesâ perspective, summer classes are inferior.
In terms of ECs, you should do what is right for you. Whatever you do, do it well. Also treat others well. If you get into a leadership position keep in mind that leadership should be about listening, helping others, and making the activity better for everyone who participates. Leadership is not about getting your way or being the boss.
Also, in terms of ECs, the longest list does not win. Being genuine and doing well in whatever you do does win. Commitment over time to constructive positive activities wins.
Also, it might be worth reading the âapplying sidewaysâ blog on the MIT admissions web site. While you might not be aiming for MIT, the same approach that it outlines works well for other schools as well. In my family the four of us have for example used this approach, and it has helped us get into eight different universities (one each for undergrad plus one each for graduate school).
Best wishes.