With approval from school counselors, students can graduate early from high school in their junior year, instead of their senior year.

If a student plans to go to college after high school, graduating early is detrimental in numerous ways.

When planning to go to college, students have several options, while still in high school, to help them once they get there. OnRamps by UT at Austin and AP and Dual Credit courses from Ranger allow students to get college credit in high school, saving  hundreds or thousands of dollars and time as they may pay less to take an AP or Dual Credit course in high school than taking it at a different college. Graduating early, while saving time by allowing students to start college a year earlier, does not save students as much money as they get less college credit. This means that unless an early graduate can get a scholarship or get it paid in another way, students will spend more money than a student who did not graduate early.

Students who graduate early to go to college also miss out on the ability to take the SAT a second time as College Board recommends. As said in a College Board Article about how many times students can take the SAT, most people do better the second time and it helps considering some colleges take the highest score. If a student graduates early, they can still take the SAT in the spring of their junior year, but they more than likely won’t have time to take a second one as they have to apply to colleges. While students can wait a year to apply, it is not recommended for the same reason they shouldn’t skip a year of math: they forget skills as they aren’t using them. 

Some students may say early graduates could graduate college a year earlier than others in the same class, allowing them to get a job sooner. While this is true, as said earlier, students can do the same with OnRamps, AP, and Dual Credit Courses. The difference is that with those courses, students can have college credit for cheaper saving them money. When students are given those two choices, there is a much better choice when it comes to saving money.

By graduating early, students hurt themselves by losing out on more affordable college credits and missing the opportunity to potentially improve their SAT score by taking it a second time.