Senior Year...Dual Enrollment? Early Graduation

Mom2aphysicsgeek
Sat, 06 Aug 2016 12:42:09 +0000

@SprbMea123 You cannot take those courses because you don’t have the prerequisite knowledge base. You already realize that.

Since you aren’t physically in school around other students, you should take time to understand how college applications work and how students are compared by adcoms. Early graduation rarely works in favor of the student. I know you don’t want to hear it and you say you have no option, but that is not going to change how your transcript is viewed. Having a solid understanding of how the process works will only benefit you in gauging where to apply and having better options come spring.

Your transcript is going to be compared exactly to students with 4 yrs of high school. All of those AP and upper level DE classes you cannot take bc you don’t have the pre-reqs will be on the transcripts of your peers bc they took 4 yrs to graduate. You will not be given a pass bc you opted to graduate in 3 yrs. This is a conversation that takes place amg parents of accelerated students all the time when those students want to apply to super competitive schools. Will my student be at a disadvantage by graduating early? The answer is always how does their transcript compare to students who didn’t.

For some students, early graduation still means cal BC, multivariable, diffEQ, multiple AP sciences, AP histories, and languages, etc. Their applications will be on even footing with their peer applicants.

Schools like Cornell and Chicago are going to have applicants with 7-15 APs as the norm, not the exception. The big picture of the competition for admissions at super competitive schools are kids who have done things like take alg as 6th or 7th graders or foreign language in middle school with AP foreign language in high school, taken classes DE during summer, and graduating with math classes beyond cal BC, AP English sr yr, 1 AP science at least by sr yr, etc. A step down in admissions competition will be alg as 8th graders or doubling up on geometry and alg 2 in high school and still getting to cal by 12th.

Only when you get to you avg less competitive schools are no APs and no advanced classes going to be the norm amg the students. Taking 1 or 2 DE classes your sr yr with the majority of your classes avg high schools classes will not make up for the void.

Graduating early is not a bad thing as long as you understand how it impacts your application and you apply to schools wisely and appropriately. Several schools on your list are good choices.