dat_nerd

CS is actually a common "back to school" major, so most of my classmates are 10+ years older than I. I don't have a problem whatsoever with the adcomm knowing I'm a young student. Rather, my question was regarding whether I should discuss this in my SOP. I decided to discuss my age only in diversity essays, but otherwise avoid mentioning it in my application.

I would avoid the childhood story route if at all possible. Lots of people do this, and the admissions committee cares about your research interests now, not when you were a child. Is there a particular research question that interests you? Writing about what makes you "tick" and get excited about a research problem is a good way to start.

From what I've heard, possibly.

Them: "So you're graduating this year? What are you going to do after you graduate?" Me: "Well, if all goes according to plan, graduate school." Them: "Oh, what do you want to study?" Me: "I want to get my PhD in computer science with a focus on artificial intelligence and robotics." Them: 0_0 Them: "...So like Terminator and stuff?" Me: Sigh...

From my experience, submitting early will only get your application reviewed early if the school has a rolling admissions process. Otherwise, they will likely review your application after the deadline. The advantage to submitting your application early is that it demonstrates your time management and separates you from the crowd of last-minute applicants.

Thanks guys for the advice. I submitted my applications yesterday, so I thought I'd give an update. I've talked with my advisor about this, and he recommended that I not mention my age. For anyone else in a similar situation, I decided against mentioning my age because admission committees are looking for maturity, and you may just be giving them a reason to reject you. You can state in your SOP that you are a mature, young student all you want, but the adcomm probably won't believe you. If you really, really want them to know that you started college early, asking a recommender who knows you as a mature student to bring this up in their letter is a much better option.

I just read your first post and had to comment. Sounds like we're in the same boat, graduation, honors thesis, two research assistant jobs, and everything. Great job on the studying, and I wish you best of luck for you applications! Hang in there!

Hi all, I'm a really young college student. I started my degree program as a pre-teen and I'll be graduating at a high school age. As I'm starting to write my SOP, I've been debating whether I should or shouldn't mention this fact. Here's the pros/cons I've considered: Pros: 1. Being a young student is different, and maybe this would appeal to a POI or make my SOP interesting. 2. The experience of being 10 years younger than my peers has really shaped me over these four years. I could even make this a major theme of my SOP. Being a young student is a major factor of who I am, and it feels like I'm misrepresenting myself if I ignore this point. Cons: 1. I don't want professors to judge me on my age alone. In the past, disclosing my age has led to me being instantly judged, and sometimes it's a poor reaction. 2. I'm concerned that an admissions board might think of me as a liability or have some other bias against admitting a young student. I know this would be considered age-discrimiation, but I actually had this happen to me when concerns were raised about my age as an undergraduate. 3. I'd like to get into a grad school based on who I am and my qualifications, not my age. I've done quite well as an undergraduate without sharing my age with professors, and I don't see any reason to change this. Previously, I had decided not to mention my age on my SOP for the reasons listed above. However, I recently made a visit to a competitive Ph.D program where the visit coordinator shared my age with the professors I planned to meet. Every professor I met asked me about how I started college so early, and two (both being POIs) told me to keep in touch. I'm not sure that I'd have had the same reaction if they didn't know my age. Any thoughts or advice? I want to start working on my POI, and I'm not sure whether making my age a main point (or even mentioning it at all) would help or hurt my chances of admission. Thanks in advance!

I thought Kaplan tests were the best, other than PowerPrep. The Kaplan tests were challenging in the math section and seemed on-par with the actual test's verbal section. I took Princeton's tests too, but they were a bit optimistic. However, the plus for using Princeton is that they'll actually grade your essays, which is good for getting a ballpark estimate when you start studying. Best of luck!