Graduating early always hurts.
Nys does have College in the Schools and BOCE which pays for HS students to attend a local CC. I think it does have a virtual high school but I’m not certain.
Yes take AB. Or senior year take calc1-2 at the local CC.
Graduating early always hurts?
I can see how graduating early could hurt admissions chances for elite schools like the ones OP fixates on. But supposing an early graduate gets shut out of the Ivies but still moves on to a state research U or other less prestigious institution, but has the challenge and variety of classes they craved, is there any evidence that this would hurt career-wise? I kind of doubt it would.
Some students wouldn’t read past the first half of the first sentence before calling it a failed applications process and therefore a failed college career and therefore a failed life.
But I personally agree with you.
I agree with you, too. In fact, My S graduated a year early because he wanted to go ahead and get going on his degree. He was not aiming for the ivies or top 20, My advice to the OP not to graduate early was based on her/his interest in attending Ivies or equivalents, who take a holistic approach to admissions.
^ op is low-income planning to apply through Questbridge.
So even if I go to this early college program, that is known for sending graduates to elite universities (some alumni have gone to Columbia), It will decrease my chance of going?? I would not, repeat WOULD NOT be taking a year off. It’s like spending senior year as a freshman in college at this program.
I don’t know anything about your specific program. In general, colleges like to see you taking the most challenging academic path. But attending early college as opposed to an advanced high school program may make you a transfer student rather than a freshman applicant to colleges.
Be sure you are clear whether you are a college student (full stop) or a high school student who happens to be taking classes at a college (dual enrollment). Dual enrollment doesn’t change your admissions or financial aid category or chances, but being a regular college student could make you a transfer applicant, which does affect your chances. Pay attention to when you officially graduate high school. You only get to be a first-time full-time freshman once.
No program sends all its participants to Columbia, so be sure to understand the full range of where everyone goes. Don’t just assume the best outcome is the only one that could happen.
Not all its participants; it has a history of sending some. At Columbia, I’d be a freshman.
Ask the program whether stusents who apply from there apply as freshmen or transfers to the next college. It’s important because transfers get lousy aid compared to freshmen. Have it in writing. If going to that school means you must have graduated high school, I’m guessing you’ll be a transfer after completing a year there, which will make Questbridge impossible for instance.
If that year counts as your senior year and is more rigorous than what you’d have at home, and wouldn’t jeopardize your freshman status, it is a possibility to look into.
But first you need to know whether being part of the program makes you a transfer to the next college, or not.
I’ve asked the admissions offices of colleges I’m thinking about, some have said I would be a freshman and some said a transfer…but then again I didn’t fully explain that I might have already gotten my diploma by the time I apply. In general, if I had my HS diploma I guess that would make me a transfer…yeah, I’ll have to do some thinking about this.
Before you spend anymore time on this, you need to know if you can pay for Clarkson. If you are low income and eligible for Questbridge, the answer is no! If, your parent has a bit set aside, as you said $30,000, why on earth would you spend that for a senior year of high school? If you think that one year at Clarkson is going to give you some kind of boost in elite college admissions, it won’t. Stay at your school, take the most rigorous courseload and focus on your EC’s . All of these threads you have started are just nonsense, you can’t game the system. You will barely have one semester of grades from the new school and no long term relationships with teachers to write recs. How will any of this help you?
This is the tail chasing the dog.
I never said my parents have $30k set aside…what I said is that for strong applicants I could maybe potentially be awarded at least $30k in merit aid. I actually know the director and some alumni personally, and they know me pretty well and will, I presume, get to know better over the next couple of years because I go to the summer camps there.
I don’t just want to do it because many alumni go on to elite institutions…I’ve wanted to go for a while now and I was just reading the brochure like a week ago that said “oh! some alumni go on to universities X, Y, and Z!” I’m not going for the admissions “boost”, which is probably very slight anyway. I’m very sorry for being unclear. I just meant it as a piece of information about the program, like how some schools say “X% of our graduates have a job within 1 year of graduation”
Please tell me no other student has tried to game the system before. Now, that certainly doesn’t make it okay, but it’s not like I’m the first one ever. For example, once I read an entire thread about using Barnard as a back door to Columbia. If that’s not gaming the system…
The 30k was on one of your other threads, maybe the graduating early thread? Sorry, you have too many to keep up with. As far as trying to game the system, most students I have known don’t try to game the system. They don’t need to.
Ok, yeah. I was unclear. Apologies.
Now I feel like a potato. “Gaming the system” was never my intention, but I guess that’s what happened and I can see that now. I honestly don’t want to be that person who only succeeds by cheating their way up.
There’s a difference between gaming and cheating, and then there’s genuine. Top schools don’t want the student who’ll always take a shortcut even if it’s borderline. They’ll want intelligence and grit and initiative and kindness.
I know it’s hard to tell because you can’t interpret tone, body language, etc, through mere text, but I’m not a conniving, cheating, fake person. I know saying it won’t convince you, but people I know would say I have those aforementioned qualities. Look, I know I can seem intense, but this is a huge issue to me, ok? I realize it must seem stereotypical, but going to college is literally my ticket out of what my life is right now. I have an obsessive personality and when I get focused on something, it becomes my whole world. I don’t see things like going to The Clarkson School as a shortcut. I want to do it to have more intellectual stimulation and be around more like-minded people. If that doesn’t work out there’s a program at the state university near me where I can basically completely dual-enroll but still be a high school student, ok? I have other options and whatever you believe, I’m not trying to game the system.
I wasn’t accusing you with the above, I was trying to get you to discern the difference since you considered gaming the system cheating and said you would not.
For the record I believe you, and I believe also how higher education your ticket out, hence the intensity. Don’t worry.
Do think about ways to convey your intensity and motivation and thirst for intellectual stimulation through actions. What can you do when school starts to make your life more intellectually enriching ? How can you help some aspects of your community?
Look into that dual enrollment option. What could you take next year already?,
It’s only for 11th and 12th graders. I am taking a few dual enrollments next year like intro to sociology and public speaking (if enough people sign up for the class).
Is that in your HS or on a real college campus?
The 11th-12th-grade thing is on the college campus but it’s not residential or anything. And it’s not like a whole program; you can take as many or as few classes as you wish.
The other classes are in my HS.