Students are taking on college and career paths earlier than usual as juniors become seniors in their second semester.
“I had my choice of college, housing, scholarships, and college athletic career all planned out and set in October,” Senior Brynn Nelson said. “I was taking my ACT over the summer as well as completing my junior English credit over the summer.”
These early grads push the timeline of their high school career by completing classes over summer break.
“I was looking at my credits and realized if I took classes in the summer I would have enough credits to graduate early if I wanted to,” Senior Isabella Knight said. “I knew a girl who was graduating early and so I talked with my parents and decided it was something I wanted to try and do.”
Counselors recommend that students consider getting smaller credits out of the way during summer school such as PE, health, and personal finance.
“If I were to plan on graduating early I would meet with your grade counselor as soon as possible, Nelson said. “You will need 3 additional credits outside your 3 years of a full course load with 7 credits. So meeting with a counselor to look at your options to get those 3 extra credits would be the first step.”
Knight plans on attending Missouri University of Science and Technology to become a mechanical engineer.
“The hardest part of graduating early is you are moving everything up a year,” Knight said. “[Also, going] to college visits and figuring out where I wanted to go to college [was difficult too].”
Some students use this opportunity to start college a year early so they can start their careers a year earlier.
“My goal is to get my [doctor of pharmacy degree] and be a pharmaceutical scientist which consists of a lot of schooling. So, graduating a year early helps me get ahead and minimize the amount of years schooling takes up in my life,” said Nelson.
When students are disengaged in school they may look back on graduating early and feel as if they missed out on opportunities.
“I think as long as they’re participating and enjoying things like school dances or proms, or they participate in the graduation and walking, then I don’t think that they will look back and feel like they missed anything,” School Counselor Jenny Myler said. “But I think also everyone’s different. So some kids may not feel like they missed anything at all, or they may absolutely just not like school.”
