Is it possible to skip the last two years of high school?

Question

Well, I am a student from Singapore, and our equivalent of the last two years of American high school is Junior College, where we study towards the (singapore-cambridge) A levels.

Now, I am 15, and for me next year would be the last year of secondary school, which is the second year of American high school.

Well, I like Penn a lot, and I am thinking if I could take the SATs now, and apply, would that be OK by the Adcoms? Would Penn consider accepting me, if say I get like a near perfect score on the SAT plus good recs.

I know of a guy who got into Caltech purely by SATs and without A levels or the sort. But Penn? How about other top business schools like Haas (Berkeley)... etc??

Thank you all...

Answer 1

1) US Universities have special policies regarding admitting students under the age of 18. They only tend to admit full-time degree seeking students under 18 in extremely special circumstances. Usually what they allow students under 18 to do is to take a limited amount of college units per year (usually amounting to one course per semester/quarter).

2) NO ONE can get into a school like Cal Tech purely on SAT's ... thats just false. No self respecting university would do such a thing ... I've known plenty of people who had perfect SAT scores (and near perfect grades) and didn't get into Top 20 schools. You cannot expect to just do really well on one test and get into any school you want. Even if you got a perfect score they would use other criteria to determine your final admission status (and ESPECIALLY if you are applying as an international student). They're not going to say "Well, this guy/girl scored perfectly on the SAT's ... thats all I need to see. Let's let him/her in" (and certainly not world renowned schools like Cal Tech, Penn States, Harvard, Berkeley, etc ...). If someone told you they got into Cal Tech on SAT's ALONE I can tell you right now they are lying to you ...

Answer 2

I'm a little confused by the way you describe this. You say that your high school covers the equivalent of U.S. junior college, yet you are suggesting that your last year of high school would end at 16? Then you say that next year would be the last year of secondary school for you, but only the second year of high school in the U.S.? That would seem to imply that secondary school is worth less than U.S. high school. I know that in the U.K., it is the case that finishing the A-levels is the equivalent of community college, but they tend to finish much later than that, like at 19 or 20. I can't see most U.S. schools admitting a sixteen-year old without a diploma, especially in something like business, which requires much more understanding of society, as opposed to math or science, for which you really only need to understand your subject matter.

I don't know what an Adcom is, but Penn turns down many people with perfect SATs (so does Caltech, by the way, so I can't imagine that your friend got in on SATs alone), so you would have to have much more to show them. Penn only takes something like 50 undergraduates a year, so they are unlikely to make exceptions to rules unless it was clear that the individual involved was truly extraordinary, not just someone with a good SAT score.

Answer 3

You need to look at their requirements for international students. Often they are different than the requirements for American students. I do know that an American student can in a sense skip high school by taking a GED at 16, going to community college for a year and then transferring.