Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion options for 15 year old after high school

Brilliantcp asks some good questions. Don't know if the OP is coming back, but I think every student should apply to at least one, preferably two schools where they are almost certain to be admitted. This means EA (non-binding and not SCEA) and/or true rolling admission schools where you receive a decision in 3-4 weeks. While these may not be top choice schools, they should be schools that the student would be willing to attend.

I did that with my two older ones, and will do with my youngest in a few years. Having an acceptance or two before the New Year means you know you'll attend college in the fall.

To the OP, you are right that students who graduate HS early may be at a disadvantage. I think that colleges fear that there may be social issues with younger students. Sometimes there are, sometimes there are not, but it is safer bet to go with the 17/18 year old with the same stats as your son than to take a chance on a 15 year old (unless he has some hook, such as groundbreaking research or is a top athlete).

If you are looking for good research universities, there are public schools that are very good research schools. If he has top grades and test scores, he should be eligible for Honors colleges within public schools, and those can be a great opportunity.

And even if he was 17/18, 10 APs and great test scores don't ensure anything. Middle kid had 10 APs (9 - 5s, 1 - 4), NMF, great SAT & ACT scores, some academic awards, 2 varsity sports, on the board of a non-profit, part-time job, etc. - did not get into any of her top choices (deferrals & waitlists, couple rejections). She is very happy at a public school, great research school. She'll be involved in some research next semester (in her freshman year). Also was admitted to a couple of schools with acceptance rates of about 25%.

Good luck with the process. If it does not work out, a gap year could be good. Don't attend any college classes though - not any community college classes either - if he wants to be considered a freshman for admission purposes after a gap year. Transfer admissions are typically much more difficult.

Absolutely!

The rule of thumb is to apply to schools which are a match, schools which are a reach (or dream school), and safety schools. A websearch on "college reach match safety" shows there are many articles about this, found online. Here are two:
- How to Choose Dream, Match, and Safety Schools, Princeton Review
- 3 types of schools you should consider when applying to college, USA Today, Feb 3, 2015, Jon Fortenbury

Good advice from one of those articles: "Students who get denied from every school they apply to most likely didn’t apply for safety schools. Don’t be that student."

All but one of the schools listed has an acceptance rate of <10% and are in the top 20 lowest acceptance rate schools. The 90+% that those schools are rejecting aren't 1350 SAT kids hoping for a miracle. While only 1% of students score 1500+ on the SAT, that's 30,000 students, probably all applying to the same set of schools, most of which enroll 1000-1500 freshmen. Those scoring that high are likely highly motivated and have excellent other tests, extracurriculars, etc., etc.

I'd suggest more research, but Michigan is probably in that safety tier (relative to the others), and Maryland/Illinois and a few others would fit.

My DD17 was accepted 3 weeks after applying, in early October, to the local (Top 50 national) university, and a few weeks later to a top 10 engineering program. These early acceptances certainly eased the wait for the rest of the stretch schools.

Some other schools which are equally strong in the profile you're looking at, and which may have slightly better odds in terms of acceptances--

Harvey Mudd

University of Washington
Maryland, as Cranberry mentions-- there is a university honors college at Maryland, I know.

Check out the possibilities of some of the honors colleges housed within larger public research unis-- they may have those low acceptance rates and VERY high average stats, but your odds are quite simply better there because they lack the inundation that a place like MIT or Princeton is going to get.

But be aware that most honors programs are housed in the social sciences or humanities-- so choose carefully and take a look at what the curriculum has to offer.

We did that and DD has been quite happy with her choice-- most math classes up to 400 level (and even some of those) are offered as a small honors-only section, she gets priority registration, and there are a lot of other small perks to being in the program.



I'd look hard at some of the 'sleeper' tech schools, too, if STEM and particularly engineering is a possibility. RPI, Lehigh, etc.

Brandeis?

Virginia, depending upon interests?

Cornell?

We looked at a great book for finding more student-interest-specific matches in colleges when DD was looking, 3y ago. Can't remember the name of the darned thing, though-- sorry.

Also be aware that age probably isn't AS big a factor as you're thinking, here. Those are schools where the majority of highly qualified applicants get rejected, too.

It is quite literally the case that nobody can really count on getting into MIT or a school like Caltech, Harvard, or Stanford. Nobody. The rejection rate for those schools is in the high ninety percent range. Probably only about one in four or five of those rejected really couldn't manage being a student at the institution.... so.

Rmember, too---

where you go is not who you'll be.


I realize that it's very easy to mourn something that you might have really, really wanted for your child, but the healthy thing here is to keep the adult perspective, which understands that life is a LOT longer than college. You can get an excellent-- even transformative-- education at almost any school.

Personally, without an extremely compelling reason, I'd be pretty reluctant to take a gap year just for the purpose of trying to reapply to a school like MIT.

Sorry-- but I just don't think that your odds are going to be appreciably better in a year. The college admissions arms race gets worse annually, from what I can tell.

Plenty of the students applying at those schools that reject 95%+ of applicants have paid assistance in preparing killer applications from top to bottom. That's reality now. If you're truly determined-- hire a writing coach that specializes in this kind of essay and have him/her spend a few hours with your child and her essay.

The edge that a young graduate has in terms of lifetime earnings is significant, let me add-- and a gap year definitely takes away one year of the gift of time that grade acceleration has given them-- so be sure that they WANT to spent it in that way and at that time.

Also, particularly for females, the extra year or two (or more) can be huge when it comes to making decisions balancing post-graduate/professional education, career advancement, and parenting. The difference between having your first child in your early 30s vs your late 30s can be quite substantial.

Some may advise against such thinking, as there have been court cases regarding students not granted admission to colleges/universities, presumably due to affirmative action. Affirmative action gives priority to increasing the number of non-white persons associated with an organization, often to meet a quota (for example: employment, college admissions, etc). If I understand correctly, the court cases alleged racial discrimination (or what some may call reverse discrimination). To raise your awareness of these cases, you may wish to do a few web searches.

.... though to be fair, it's unclear exactly what that information would mean in practical terms for any individual.


{sigh}

Even if that were to turn out to be The Reason for college admission decisions at a particular school, for a particular applicant at a particular moment in time, it's not likely to be something that a candidate may either use predictively (since it depends upon the racial composition of the other applicants in the highly qualified pool) and also upon the immutable personal attribute of one's own race, and how it might be prioritized in any particular way at that time.


Young woman in STEM is probably a plus at these schools, and race might be a negative, as noted.... but it's hard to say that either thing is a major point one way or the other, and in any event, they are likely to have somewhat balancing impact for a net zero influence.

All that to note that I wouldn't spend too much time on it. But that's me personally.

The tech schools like RPI that I mentioned are often those which prioritize female applicants, however. Just noting that.

It is great to begin to have identified an issue which one can focus on, work on, and turn their energy toward improving. The book, or other similar guides, may be available at your local public library or through inter-library loan.

Many parents learn these finer points of college admissions alongside their children.

This is quite common. Fortunately, these online forums can be of great help in suggesting resources for kids to use to optimize their studying, and prepare for the admissions process.

DS6 is completing 2nd grade this year, skipped 1st grade. We are eyeing another grade skip for him. Looking down the road he would be graduating at 15, turning 16 right after graduation. I too am concerned about this affecting his college prospects. Are there any success stories for multiple grade skips and transition to college? Can the other posters on this thread comment on how things turned out?