What steps do you have to take in high school in order to graduate from college in 3 years?

[Anonymous]

Look for duel enrollment opportunities at something like an Arlington Tech in lieu of AP. College selection could be key if you go the AP route as there's a ton of variability in how much or what is needed for college credit.

[Anonymous]

It will be easier if you don’t let him live on campus so he doesn’t make close friends as easily. No one wants to miss senior year with friends!

[Anonymous]

OP, my son will leave high school with BC calc and Physics C, among other AP classes.

He had been accepted to a few engineering schools ranked between 20 and 40, so not too shabby.

ALL advise the engineering students to be very, very careful about using those APs to skip ahead in their core subjects.

The better the school, the less the APs are likely to be CPU ted.

So, maybe your kid will be so brilliant this warning doesn't matter, or maybe he'll have a ton of APs that do actually get him out of stuff since he won't actually want to continue in that field. Who knows?

Just putting it out there that an AP class is like a college class, but it isn't necessarily good enough.

[Anonymous]

Have you considered the social and emotional cost your child will be paying to save tuition $$? Kids do a lot of growing up in college. You can't speed that up by taking AP's.

In both high school and college, they will have tons of stress and limited outside outlets (to relax, exercise, make friends, discover interests). Is this the trade off path you want to them to start down? What does it teach them about healthy balance in later life?

Mind you, I don't know your family's socioeconomic status. If you see this as the only way for him to get a degree, you may have to consider it. I am just suggesting that take into account the hidden costs of this discount plan you have in mind.

[Anonymous]

The most important thing that your 8th grader can do right now is get a good grounding in his HS subjects.

[Anonymous]

"The most important thing that your 8th grader can do right now is get a good grounding in his HS subjects."

This is the correct answer. The problem is depending on your HS, this could mean starting APs in 9th grade or it could mean taking a light load in HS, say at a magnet, so that you are ready to tear into college at 18+ credits per semester.

Even with a light load at a magnet you might have a years worth of worthy AP. Even if you don't get credit for the APs, because you know a large chunk of the material, you can make 18 or more credits, even at an Ivy.

Another issue is that depending on what you want to major in, finishing college in 3 years can make it harder to do honors and/or a capstone project. Research is difficult to do quickly with any type of quality as an undergrad with little experience.

[Anonymous]

Take AP classes and do well. Take 18 credits each semester and a couple of summer courses. Not that hard.

[Anonymous]

I was only in college for three years, but took a full year off and worked in paid jobs. I was fluent in Arabic and it being post-911, I was hired to work as a translator for a defense contractor. I actually lived at home and commuted to Tysons. It was a good experience and I saved about 35K during that year. It turned out to be a mixed blessing since my mother was diagnosed with cancer and I was able to spend much more time with her than if I would have if I spent that third year at Brown. That was actually the biggest reason why I decided to take a break.

I promptly went back and finished and took off to work at an NGO in DC, eventually went to grad school and work at USAID now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:"The most important thing that your 8th grader can do right now is get a good grounding in his HS subjects."

This is the correct answer. The problem is depending on your HS, this could mean starting APs in 9th grade or it could mean taking a light load in HS, say at a magnet, so that you are ready to tear into college at 18+ credits per semester.

Even with a light load at a magnet you might have a years worth of worthy AP. Even if you don't get credit for the APs, because you know a large chunk of the material, you can make 18 or more credits, even at an Ivy.

Another issue is that depending on what you want to major in, finishing college in 3 years can make it harder to do honors and/or a capstone project. Research is difficult to do quickly with any type of quality as an undergrad with little experience.

It seems that getting ahead a bit and knocking some required courses out via AP/dual enrollment actually makes taking advantage of honors and research opportunities more doable within a 4 year time frame. You wind up getting a huge bang for your buck during your 4 years.

Quickest route to a degree would probably be knocking out college major prereqs during HS (via AP/dual enrollment) and taking advantage of summer semester. You could conceivably graduate from HS with your AA in hand and then have only 2 years of upper level coursework to worry about.

[Anonymous]

It is technically possible to graduate in as little as two years in 90% of the colleges in this country. The only colleges that make early graduation more difficult are the elites. If your child's goal is for a vocational-oriented degree and is mature enough to speed things up, spending as little time in college as possible is a very smart thing to do. Community college credits, dual enrollment, and APs will almost always be honored by the vast majority of colleges. They have an extra incentive to do so because on average it takes 6+ years for someone to graduate from a public university and early graduates help make them look better. One difficulty will be getting into all the required courses on the timeframe your child needs because of limited offerings and preferences for upperclassmen. The other will be whether that much focus and commitment is right for your child when their friends are sowing their oats.

On the other hand, if your child is an academic high achiever in high school, maybe they could be more ambitious in college. It is a luxury to be able to explore different fields and not have to worry about whether every class meets some job requirement. There's a reason why people who can afford four years take the time.

[Anonymous]

"It seems that getting ahead a bit and knocking some required courses out via AP/dual enrollment actually makes taking advantage of honors and research opportunities more doable within a 4 year time frame. You wind up getting a huge bang for your buck during your 4 years."

Well if you graduate in 3 years and then just get a job in the lab you worked in as an undergrad that pays room and board, you could skip tuition the fourth year.

[Anonymous]

oops hit submit too soon

"It seems that getting ahead a bit and knocking some required courses out via AP/dual enrollment actually makes taking advantage of honors and research opportunities more doable within a 4 year time frame. You wind up getting a huge bang for your buck during your 4 years."

Well if you graduate in 3 years and then just get a job in the lab you worked in as an undergrad that pays room and board, you could skip tuition the fourth year.

I kind of like the previously mentioned idea of a gap year between say 2nd and 3rd/final year. If you skipped tuition that year and worked in the lab/published, you would have a better resume for grad school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:1. Look at canadian schools

2. Look at british schools

Pay attention to what APs are required to get credit in Canada. Unis is England are three years by default, Scotland is four.

Canadian here, who also attended school in the UK.

APs are worth very little in either of these systems. If you *really* want full credit for a year of uni, far more useful will be a full IB diploma with a minimum grade of 5 in each class. That's what I did, and I was admitted straight to second year at McGill.

[Anonymous]

I did this (graduating in 1995, so YMMV).

1. It was my idea, not my parents'.
2. I took four AP exams and got 4s and 5s
3. I attended a college that accepted AP credit for these exams
4. The summers after my junior and senior years of high school, I took two and three college courses, respectively at nearby (relatively low-cost) colleges.

I started as a freshman and technically was deemed to have "skipped" a sophomore year.

Costs associated with this:

1. a double major was out. Actually, given the gen ed requirements at the college I graduated from, even a major and minor were out.

2. I really did not have the time (or the social fluency) to get ready for a study abroad experience, and therefore did not consider one.

3. It required a lot of work from me on the front end. See number 1 on the list above. If your child is not motivated for this, it's not happening.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:oops hit submit too soon

"It seems that getting ahead a bit and knocking some required courses out via AP/dual enrollment actually makes taking advantage of honors and research opportunities more doable within a 4 year time frame. You wind up getting a huge bang for your buck during your 4 years."

Well if you graduate in 3 years and then just get a job in the lab you worked in as an undergrad that pays room and board, you could skip tuition the fourth year.

I kind of like the previously mentioned idea of a gap year between say 2nd and 3rd/final year. If you skipped tuition that year and worked in the lab/published, you would have a better resume for grad school.

That is actually a really, really good idea. I wonder how competitive those jobs are, though. I would imagine that you can't exactly count on getting a job like that - the competition must pretty fierce.

I will mention this to my son.