Do you want to graduate early? Will you find it worth it? I would tell you to choose whatever path that fits you. But have you really considered the activities and experience you will miss?
Graduating early means that you will sacrifice some of your high school experience such as senior activities, or the opportunities to find what major fits your interests, to work on networking and develop meaningful relationships. You might even find yourself struggling with applying to colleges and financial aid because of the lack of assistance from school counselors.
Once you enter your senior year, there will be so many activities you want to be a part of which will be missed if you graduate early. There are activities like prom, senior trips, senior sunset and sunrise, and Grad night. I know some people will say they can still attend these activities, because they believe they will be the expectation because they are graduating early. These events are made specifically for seniors which makes it difficult for others to attend. For example, if you are graduating in your junior year, you would be classified as a junior instead of a senior, thus you will get into trouble when attending the “senior” events. Moreover, you will not be graduating with your friends. However, students who choose not to graduate early get to celebrate their achievements with classmates they’ve built strong connections with over the years. All these activities are really fun but doing these activities with friends makes it more memorable, amusing, and entertaining.
Graduating early also means that you will miss out on opportunities to experience different majors, developing networking skills, and establishing meaningful relationships. Throughout your four years of high school, you will meet new people who could help you learn new experiences and even help you in the future. But graduating early means that this experience will be shorter, which might get you less prepared for college life.. A lot of high schools also offer career and major exploration opportunities, so students are able to know about and experience different majors. A common thing in college is that people tend to switch majors because they do not know about other majors like digital mapping, communication technologies, ecogastronomy and architecture, which causes them to spend extra time and money. It is best that you take your time to find what you like most because your career would mostly be based on this major.
To make matters worse, graduating early can lead to difficulty in applying to colleges and financial aid. Some colleges may see early graduation as a lack of ability in taking rigorous coursework for a persevere . However, early graduation and rigorous coursework also means less time to participate in extracurriculars which can negatively impact your application. Colleges love to see students participate in extracurricular activities and they usually like to see that you participate in those for three to four years. Students are only allowed to take rigorous coursework during the school year, not during the summer. Students are usually recommended to take three to four AP courses, which can cause a lot of stress and pressure to turn work and do well on tests, but also having time to participate in extracurricular activities.
It can also cause early graduates to have their financial aid divided to cover only the semester they are enrolled in. Financial aid is mainly based on enrollment status. If an early graduate applies for half-time enrollment their grant can be reduced or even canceled. Students who graduate early can also risk forfeiting their financial aid grace period.(expand a little more on this.
Overall, just remember that your journey is never certain and is for you to decide as time passes. Whatever path you choose, just make sure when you are picking a path you do all your research before heading down that way. It is better to be over prepared than under prepared.
