Graduating early may be something that has crossed your mind, but you don’t know whether or not to do it. Or maybe you don’t know HOW to do it. You may even be stuck between wanting to stay to be with your friends or graduating early to get a jump on your future. I’m here to tell you that graduating early is the best option for you! There are many benefits of graduating early that you need to hear.

By graduating early, this is your chance to start working full time or even get two jobs! You are able to put in more hours for work to be able to earn more money. This will help you create a better and stable income that will help you throughout college. You have some time to yourself to travel before you graduate. You can travel places you always wanted to go, but never had time to because of school. By graduating early, you will have more time to focus on applying for colleges and working on your college resume. Mrs.Pearl, a counselor here at Cesar Chavez High School, also recommends that students take graduating early into consideration and she is glad it is offered. She even stated that, “by graduating early you can start college classes to get ahead and even do a trade school or CTE program.” A CTE program is a career and technical education program that actually gives high school students the chance to get a head start on preparing themselves for college and their future careers.

In order to be able to graduating early, there are actually requirements you will have to make below: 

step 1: Take all the required classes and compete the 230 credits needed for graduation. This includes algebra, geometry, economics & government, and more.

step 2: Check if you qualify for early graduation and if so you will need to sign a mid-year graduation paper with the following people: your parents/guardian, counselor, textbook clerk, asb, and the school principal. Then don’t forget to fill-out your FAFSA Application, do career research through xello, and finally apply to Stockton Scholars for your guaranteed scholarship, as well as two other scholarships.

step 3: Talk to your counselor and stay up to date and check in with said counselor to see if you are on track consistently throughout the term.

step 4: Finally, you just have to have good behavior and attendance. You need to stay on track and focus on school to be able to take this great opportunity of graduating early.

If by chance you are denied early graduation, please go back to step 2 and repeat the steps that follow. If when graduating early, you want to go to a four year university then you will have to also make sure that your A through G requirements are complete as well as English 4. 

We both recommend graduating early and we both are actually planning on graduating early ourselves. Graduating early has so many benefits that everyone should really take into consideration.