Only one post per topic is allowed. I merged the thread in College Admissions into this one.
Would she actually have to do anything to home school you if she “outsources” the schooling by having you enroll in courses at colleges/universities?
Are there other available high schools that are suitable academically (even if not “the best”) and socially (i.e. do not have the social negatives that you describe)?
I see mostly high school focused ECs with no outstanding awards or high level accomplishments. Even with great test scores, you will not be competitive at the top schools compared to their normal applicant pool at this time.
I will echo the other posters and say your GC is correct: you are not prepared to apply this fall. Did you see the thread about the 15 yr old attending MIT? http://news.mit.edu/2015/ahaan-rungta-mit-opencourseware-mitx-1116 Those are the types of younger students attending top schools. Their accomplishments exceed high school srs, making them extremely competitive.
Bored with your classes? Enrich yourself. AoPS math, Opencourseware/Coursera, Great Courses lectures are all sources for exploring subjects. Interested in econ? Spend time in independent study exploring that passion.
http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/economics/
http://www.thegreatcourses.com/search/sort-by/relevance/sort-direction/desc/mode/list?q=Economics
You are blessed with not being restricted by financial limitations. Applying now, however, will exert plenty of self-inflicted limitations bc your app will be weak compared to kids working on their apps/prepping for apps for months. Focusing on strengthening your qualifications and overall app, instead of trying to graduate early, will ultimately open doors to spending your 4 yrs of UG in an environ like you are seeking.
You sound like a wonderful student. It is November 27th. Your guidance counselor is correct, that you are pushing at the rope in terms of getting into college for the coming year. You don’t have any “stats” to speak of, so it’s hard to honestly calibrate yourself.
Nonetheless, there is more than one way to traverse the road ahead.
Sign up for the SAT and ACT. Many schools who require SAT IIs will accept the ACT instead of both SAT and SAT II.
A number of colleges will accept juniors. I think Simon’s rock would be great for a sophomore in your position, but I think you are far enough along, where perhaps you could get into a great college. I’ve looked into this once, and I recall that Wellesley and Carnegie Mellon both have early college programs. I think that you are better off going to a full 4 year college.
If you can get it to work, fabulous. If not, waiting a year is not so terrible.
One other option that you can try, is to stop judging your classmates so harshly, and to view them as intellectual challenges. It’s really beneficial for whatever career you are ultimately going to have to be able to get along with everybody even if you don’t like them. Read up on “emotional intelligence”, and use your classmates as your laboratory to work on yours.
I agree with Wis. Finish high school. See if you can take some dual enrolled community college courses, and/or a challenging online course.
The answer to the issues you present is not applying to and attending Simons Rock.
You will have a broader breadth of choices if you give yourself the extra year in HS.
I’ll be blunt. You’re late to the early college party. Especially if you are a junior and still haven’t taken either SAT or ACT. My daughter wanted out of her high school, for different reasons, by late winter of her sophomore year. We investigated St. Simon’s Rock and it looked like a good fit for her. But I didn’t want to send her there for her junior year. What I did do was allow her to approach her junior year as if it were her senior year. That meant she took the ACT and SAT in the spring of her sophomore year. Best thing I did - it showed her she was not quite ready to compete with the rising seniors.
After some introspection, she realized she was unhappy with a single aspect of her school life, not everything and everyone. Like you, it was a social issue although not the same one. Once she addressed this issue, the burning desire to leave high school early went away. This experience taught her she couldn’t run away from her real problem and suggesting a solution to a different issue didn’t help.
Are you doomed? Absolutely not. You live in a major metropolitan area and you appear to have financial resources. Put this together and you can supplement your high school experience. Seek out opportunities to find like-minded teens and activities. I think what people are saying, it doesn’t look like you have taken advantage of what you have around you.
I’ll chime in with everyone else. Finish high school.
You need to do more to make yourself competitive for the type of colleges that interest you.Right now, your ECs and co-curricular activity list is weak for the tier of college you are aiming for. If you think your art work is good, you need to develop a portfolio and submit an arts supplement… That takes time. Given your areas of interest, you might want to write and submit a paper to The Concord Review. http://www.tcr.org/ If possible, take AP exams in econ and, if possible, other subjects this spring. If you can’t take AP check into CLEP.
If you’d asked this question a month or so ago, I would have recommended applying to this. https://dornsife.usc.edu/resident-honors-program/ However, the deadline is December 1 and I doubt you can get it together by then, but just in case…
Two questions that you should think carefully about:
- Why do you feel that you must attend a high school where you are so unhappy?
Look around. There are other options near you. You do not need to limit yourself to the “top” high school. A school that is “lower-ranked” may have a healthier social environment for you.
- Why do you only want to attend a “top” college or university in the US?
There are scads of places that would take you right now, and many of them would offer you a solid undergraduate experience. Many won’t ask for test scores at all. Re-check the list at http://fairtest.org/university/optional
I’m a bit puzzled as to how all the students at what you say is the top ranked school available (at least to girls) in your country are obsessed with designer lipsticks, appearance and boyfriends, and not particularly interested in academics. Not sure how a school with such students could be so highly ranked. I guess somehow I feel you must not be giving enough credit to your classmates. Also, if I understand correctly, you’ve only been attending this school for 3 months. Perhaps you haven’t befriended the right people yet?
“it really does seem as if everything I’ve been doing up until now is to just prepare me for that common application.” I think this is your problem.
I’d stop for a minute and evaluate the opportunity that you have in front of you. Early college is not all that you think it is. Our older son attended it at a regional university, entering college as a sophomore in HS. I have to say his experience was mixed at best. EC was not oriented to attending the next college, has no supervision on campus, no guidance counseling, and little formal structure. The EC students took mandated state tests like the ACT and HS assessments, but that was about it. He ended up getting his degree from that university, which worked out well for him, but his experience with fellow university students was very disappointing. He felt the quality of students there was just… bad (not the EC students) , too much drinking, not enough studying, not enough ambition … similar to the alienation you are feeling now in your HS. In addition - no parental involvement.
Our other son attends a private prep school and his experience has been really great. The school is oriented to sending students to top 25 schools ; they involve the family, have staff with degrees equivalent to what you’d find at a top Uni, and thoroughly understand the application process and what credentials are required to succeed in college admissions. In addition, there are a lot of positives to the high school experience - music, drama, sports, clubs , competitions etc… , a slower pace of classes compared to college. He’s made lots of friends - male and female -who care nothing about cliques.
You can take academics to the level you want to by requesting additional resources from your teachers. You will need to learn certain life skills before you are ready for college anyway and that includes getting along with your peers. To use your example of the $50 lipstick - in that product alone you have dozens of fields of study. Business, luxury marketing, chemistry, psychology, packaging, logistics, agriculture, engineering… how, why, who, what. When you are ready to ask those questions, you will be ready to attend college.
You haven’t had the benefit of years on involvement with the other girls, just get over it and do what you need to do. You certainly don’t need them to validate you. You have a perfect case study right in front of you.
Undergrad college content really doesn’t vary much , the difference is in the quality of your peers and resources. You will need to jump a lot of hurdles to get where you want and the most direct way is where you are now. Start looking at colleges now, plan some visits with your parents during holidays, take some ACT/SAT practice tests and see which you do better on and sign up for the test this spring. Get close to some teachers who will write recommendations for you. You only have 1.5 yrs left - make good use of it.
“My guidance counsellor told me that…if I finish my senior year, I will be an incredibly strong applicant to some of the best universities in the US.” Hmm. Your record looks good to me, and I think if you stay the course you will be a competitive applicant, but I feel the description "incredibly strong applicant’ is a little unrealistic. Whatever decision you make, I’m not sure you should consider yourself such a shoe-in to the top US schools. But perhaps your guidance counselor knows something we don’t.
I am usually an advocate for early college. I have seen it work well for several people, most of all my own sister who went to college at 15. The decision to have her leave high school early was suggested by her GC. She was having a lot of social problems which was leading her toward drugs and other dangerous behaviors. She was also failing all her classes even though she scored a perfect SAT at age 12. High school was truly the wrong place for her. When she got to college at age 15 her life turned around. She made real friends, she no longer did drugs, and her academics turned to all As. She was finally happy. She says it was the best thing that ever happened to her. She is in her 40s now.
But her situation was different. It was more important for her to be IN college than to be at a TOP college. She didn’t need to have all her ducks in a row to be attractive to the top schools. She went to a totally out of the way college in the middle of nowhere and thrived there. She later transferred to our state flagship where she continued to very very well.
If you want to go to a top college next year, you are too late. Preparing for an American top school requires strategy including participating in ECs, having very high test scores, having the right classes, and writing excellent essays. Early decisions deadlines have passed. You are out of time.
If you wanted to simply start college next year, there are many options but is this what you want?
Every qualified person in your life has told you that this is not a good idea.
I’m not sure that the opinions of strangers online, even if you can find some who agree with you, override that of the guidance counselor in your “nationally ranked private school in Canada with superb teachers .”
Simply put: College is for those who have graduated high school.
Sometimes, when everyone else in your world seems wrong, it’s not them but you. You claim to be someone " who is reasonably sociable/popular" but that “Moreover, the student body by and large seems more concerned with the shape of their bodies, the attractiveness of their boyfriends, and whether they wield a superiority to other girls in these regards. Obviously this doesn’t apply to every social group, but in cases where it doesn’t, students are already a part of the “loner” crowd.”
I wonder what the take would be by others in your school who don’t wish to get out?
You can learn and do good work at any college, or any high school for that matter. I think your focus in on the wrong things, and your attitude will change if you change that.
My kids went to a mediocre small high school and did very well with admissions. My son was in a physics class where the teacher had just had twins: he literally slept in the next room while my son and his few classmates got themselves a book and taught themselves physics. They got 5’s and went to Ivies and other top schools, regardless of the lousy school. Other kids did music at a conservatory prep rather than rely on the school music, or worked, interned or volunteered in ways that supplemented school and added to their development while benefiting the community.
I am going to be blunt and say that you appear immature. Otherwise I would be a fan of early college. I looked into it for my middle child because she was more mature than other kids in her class, in so many ways, but we are glad she didn’t go early. Teen years are unhappy for many, and things work out better as you develop. Your brain is under construction right now, it actually changes during adolescence. Let it reach its 18 year old level if you can endure. Brain development is not the same as intelligence or even academic interest: it is more multi-faceted. You do not come off as a highly evolved person as yet, and I think you need more time.
Focusing on getting into college to this extent, while you are in high school can be very unhealthy. Try to live in the now a little and make your world a better place, so to speak. it is up to you. You can thrive anywhere, you really can.
I am sorry you have had to move and have had disruptions. It is hard being in a new school. Some of your projects were unfinished due to this disruption. Try to build continuity in your life and settle in before the next change. It’s hard to know when to change things and when to accept, but in your case, I think a little more acceptance will help you.
compmom brings up an important point about your recent move. Much of what you are going through right now may simply be cultural adjustment - yup, you can suffer “culture shock” when you move from one high school to another. If you try looking at your experience at the new school through that lens, you might find good ways to deal with the parts of it that are annoying for you. One good, easy read on the subject is “The art of crossing cultures” by Craig Storti. Take a look at that book, try out the strategies that he suggests, and see if your life starts to improve.
I would hesitate at Simon’ s Rock as my ancient experience/ reputation is that’s where the special smart drug dealers went. however, if you want to try high school /early college you might want to take a look at Clarkson University. It’s near the Canadian border in Potsdam and you take college classes. I don’t know how hard it is but the University is certainly STEM based.
You know, just about every post on this tread is about conventional wisdom. Some I think are more critical of the OP than necessary.
The only person I know who went to Simon’s Rock was most unconventional. It was the right decision for her. She had an SAT off the charts as a freshman in HS. School was a waste of time for her and she just wouldn’t do busy work, so she was failing. Her parents struggled mightily. In hindsight it was a good decision.
Sometimes, you have to just use your best judgement. You are certainly old enough to do that. At the end of the day, if you have the resources and the drive, you can take risks. If they turn out badly, you just move on.
Our family did some very unconventional things in the course of our kids’ educations. However, I do think in the context of recent changes in the original poster’s life (and timing of application) it would be wise to give the current school more of a chance, and also do more outside of school- first. I also think that some of the same issues that this OP is dealing with in high school will crop up at Simon’s Rock or at college: the grass isn’t really as green at those places as it might seem. Cliques are everywhere, and the kind of stimulating intellectual conversation that the original poster yearns for may not exist either.
That said, many posters have made suggestions for various avenues to take, whether taking college classes while in high school, CLEP’s, GED or distance diploma, more enrichment outside of school, or applying to college now.
@ClassicRockerDad and I both talked about unconventional people in our post and I noticed two things in common. Both the people we spoke of had early SATs that were off the charts. He mentioned an SAT as a high school freshman, and my sister had her SATs in middle school for talent search. We both also mentioned students who were failing high school. These two students were truly different. They had early testing which indicated a high level of readiness for college level work at a very young age, and they also showed a true disconnect with high school through failing grades. Both these students were high risk as well, as their failing grades were leading then toward dropping out of high school.
I don’t see the same disconnect with the OP. She seems unhappy in her current situation but not at risk. I don’t know about her intellectual pursuits but I am not sure there is an indicator of extreme abnormal intelligence like the two individuals rockerdad and I mentioned. OP may not have had the opportunity to try early talent programs, however, so no early SAT is available. I believe that most early college students have a record of things like early testing and talent search participation, because often parents have been dealing with the intellectual disconnect for years. With my own son, who was recommended for early college but opted not to go, we started dealing with academic issues as early as 3rd grade and have used enrichment opportunities such as talent search, online classes (as early as elementary school), and single subject acceleration. I think this is why some students are ready to apply to early college at a young age. It is just another option after a long history of trying to find something to keep that kid involved in school. OP send to be hitting her wall much later.