<p>I am a junior in HS and I don’t know whether I should graduate early (end of junior year) and go to a community college or stay and take a shot at UMD College Park. My GPA right now is a 3.3 un-weighted. This is because of stupid decisions freshmen year that ruined my GPA. I have always been a very good student but freshmen year everything fell apart, I had a 2.3 gpa. Since then I have improved it A LOT and I have gotten very serious about education. Right now I have received straight A’s this year and will keep it that way. I have taken all honors and I am taking 3 AP courses right now so my classes are very hard. I am in the engineering club so I am sort of involved in the school. I have not taken my SAT but according to my PSAT I should do fairly good (close to 2000) plus i am studying very hard for it. Based on this what do you think I should do? I really want to graduate a top ranked university and I believe I could if I had a little more time to show what I can do. I am leaning towards graduating early and going to Montgomery College (Community College) for a year to show my actual skills and than transfer to UMD with a high college GPA but people are telling me me I have a good chance to get into UMD College Park if I stay. Thank you so much for the help.</p>
<p>You should stay your senior year and pound out great grades this year and next. THAT will be the best indicator of future college success – not attending a community college.</p>
<p>There is NO possible way that you’ll be more attractive going only 3 yrs of HS and then going to community college by choice. I would only recommend you take dual community college coursework is if you’ve exhausted what your HS can offer. That doesn’t seem to be the case however.</p>
<p>UMD College Park may be a stretch regardless. You can see what stats admitted students have:
<a href=“https://www.irpa.umd.edu/menus.cfm?action=cds[/url]”>https://www.irpa.umd.edu/menus.cfm?action=cds</a></p>
<p>Go to section C of 2012</p>
<p>If you work hard you will be able to get into umd so I would give that a shot.</p>
<p>I see no reason to graduate early. Also are you taking your forth English class this year? If not you can’t graduate early as to graduate in md you have to fav taken four years of English class.</p>
<p>Thanks for the advice and I see your point but I REALLY want to go to College Park because I want to major in computer science and they are 15th best in the nation in Computer Science and the only university within my reach that’s in the top 20 for CS. Let’s say I do really good in Montgomery college and I from a 3.6 to a 4.0 gpa. And if you take 30 credits in community college they don’t look at your HS transcripts so they would not know (or care) that I graduated early. Also Montgomery College and UMD have a very good relationship. They have the MTAP program which is made to help Community college students transfer to UMD. And I have a few friends who were successful in what I am trying to do so I know its possible. Do you still think it would be smarter to stay in HS and try to go straight to UMD?</p>
<p>I am planning to take English 12 over the summer. How much of my senior year grades do colleges look at?</p>
<p>See if you can have a face to face with a UMD admissions person. Be frank. Let him/her know your past deficiencies. See what he/she suggests. Good luck to you.</p>