How to Get to College Before 18

College before 18. It sounds great doesn't it? Especially if you want to get free college credit and finish high school early. But let's see your reasons for wanting to do this. Maybe you already know what you want to do for a career and you're looking for a head start. Maybe you're not being challenged enough in school or you've already maxed out all of your resources. Or you could be absolutely sick of being in a classroom 8 hours a day when you know you could be more productive. In my post about how I got to college early, I talked about the resources I had that helped me succeed. Not everyone has access to those, but I'm going to tell you how to create your own resources to help you get ahead. Firstly, be ready to make this a reality. As you read what I'm about to tell you, don't doubt yourself or say that you can't do it until you've finished reading everything. Too many people hold themselves back by learning things with a closed mind. Now let's get started with 5 steps to beginning your journey to college.

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1. Define Your Goals

Goals help us know what we are working towards. Many people have career and academic goals, health goals, and personal goals. If you're reading this, you are likely interested in going to college early, which is a good start. In order for it to be a little more structured you have to answer some questions such as:

"When do you want to go to college?"

"Why do you want to go to college?"

"What career do you want?"

If your answers to these questions are "early" "because it's cool" and "I don't know", it's a sign that it's time for you to set some goals. Since goals need to be specific, "early" is a not a good response, since it's relative and doesn't have a time frame. Let's assume you're 14 and a freshman in high school. Maybe you don't want to do college right now or things are too busy for you at the moment. That's fine, you can set goals for the future. A specific goal would be "I want to get to college at 16" or "I want to go to college in my junior year". Those answers are more specific and allow you time to create smaller steps.

Another key part of creating goals is figuring out why you want to achieve them. In this case, you'd need to answer why you want to go to college. Do you want to impress people? Are you bored and looking for a change? Are you interested in getting ahead for your career? Do you need to be challenged? Now none of these answers are necessarily wrong, but your why needs to stick with you when things get hard. For instance, suppose your have a really big exam in your English class. It needs to be 6 pages long with citations and it's on a topic that's really boring. However, you can withdraw from the class with few consequences. Then is when you need to remember the why. If you went to college early because you were bored, writing a 6 page paper on the history of cement isn't worth it. But if you went to college early because it's your dream to become an engineer (yes, engineers have to take English), you can visualize that end goal and realize that even though it's really boring now, it'll be worth it in the end. That's why it's so important to have a solid why for doing things. And if you don't know what career you want, you can take a career quiz, or talk to a guidance counselor. You don't need to have everything figured out right now, but it's good to know what you're interested in.

2. Assess Your Needs

After you've created your goal, you need to break down the smaller steps and figure out what you need to achieve it. Suppose you want to become an engineer but you're only a freshman in high school. You would need to figure out the career path to become and engineer. What would your major be in college? How long do you need to study? What skills do you need? Then you can plan accordingly and be prepared for what you will need to do in the future. You'd also need to learn about what the career is like to see if that's what you would like to do as a career. Sites such as O*NET and the Bureau of Labor Statistics offer information as well as growth projections.

3. Investigate Resources

So you've figured out what your end goal is and what you need to achieve it. Now you need to figure out what your resources are. Let's go back to our engineering example. Engineers use a lot of science and math, so you'd need to make sure you have good grades in those subjects in high school. You might also want to consider either AP or Honors courses depending on the situation. You can also look into programs at your community center or library. These are all good resources and are often free or of very little cost, but since this is about getting to college early, that's where I will be focused.

Check to see where your local community college is and if they offer dual enrollment or early admission. Then see what the requirements are for a student to attend. Dual enrollment is a program that lets students attend both high school and college at the same time. You won't have extra schoolwork and you can get free or cheap college credit. If you're a junior in high school and your strength is in English, you could take an English course at a community college and get college credit while skipping English 3. Many colleges aim for juniors and seniors in high school but I've seen colleges accept students as early as the sixth grade. They usually require some form of high school credit so you'd need to have taken some courses before you attend. If you're going to be an engineer, you can take some beginner courses in math and science. A smart thing to do even if you don't know what career you want, is to take electives. Here's a list of some college freshman courses that I recommend:

English 101 or College Comp I

Intro to Sociology or Psychology 101

Intro to Humanities or Art History

Statistics

Foreign Language

Many of these courses are necessary regardless of what field you go into. They help round you and you'll get both college and high school credit at either a discounted rate or for free. This will help you not only graduate high school early, it will also help prepare you to go to college and figure out what you want to do.

4. Create A Plan

Now that you have your end goals in mind, you know what you need and what resources are around you, you can start your plan. If you're a freshman in high school who wants to become an engineer with a goal of getting to college at 16, your plan could look something like this:

Name: Taylor Perkins

Age: 14

Goal: Start College at 16

Future Career: Mechanical Engineer

Resources: STEM Summer Program at library, Robotics Club at school, Ridge Community College

Dual Enrollment Qualifications: 10 high school credits, 3.0 GPA, school approval

Timeline:

Freshman Year - English I, Algebra I, World History, Physical Science, Spanish I, PE (6 credits) (6 credits total)

Sophomore Year - English II, Geometry, Geography, Biology, Spanish II, PE (6 credits) (12 credits total)

Notes: I can take high school courses in the summer virtually and learn more through the summer STEM program. If I maintain a GPA above 3.0, I can reach my goal.

So as you can see, it's fairly simple once you know what you want. Your plan doesn't have to look like the one above, but it helps to write things down so you know what you are going to do. It will help keep you organized and be prepared for when you dual enroll.

5. Begin Your Journey

The final step is to put all of this into action. You can be ready to start your journey today. Reach out to your guidance counselor. Take a career test. Look for your resources. And most importantly, be ready to reach your goals and achieve great things.