I have only 4 credits that I need to graduate high school as a sophomore. Should I graduate early or should I take duel enrollment classes to earn college credit?
Do you only need a certain number of credits to graduate and not certain classes as well? Regardless, I would advise against graduating that early if you plan on attending college unless you also some absolutely stellar extracurriculars. The reason why I say this is because, if you decide to apply to college, you will be competing against people who have had significantly more time than you to work on their profile. They'll have taken more (and potentially more difficult) classes, had more time to prep for SAT/ACT, had more opportunities to create a strong EC profile, had more time to become familiar with teachers for letters of recommendation, etc. Basically you'll be putting yourself at a disadvantage if you graduate early. Plus, taking DE classes has the potential to help cut the cost of college a bit if you can earn credits which transfer.
If you are in any school activities or groups, I would consider taking dual credit classes so you can also stay in those programs, but otherwise I would just graduate early and enroll full time at a local community college to work towards an associate's degree. If you aren't invested in having a "typical" high school experience and won't feel like you're missing out on too much, I don't think there would be a reason to not graduate early. I also think that you would want to stay close to home first if you do graduate early because it would halp ease the adjustment from high school to college life.
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Thank you for your response it was very helpful! I only need 4 credits and they are mostly elective so they are non-specific classes. Also I am leaning more towards taking duel enrollment instead of graduating early. Do you think it would be a good idea to get my Associate's degree in highschool and transfer it to a Bachelor's degree?