Outcomes for Students on a Fast Track to College: Early College Entrance Programs at the University of Washington

Radical acceleration from middle school to university is an unusual option in the United States. The Early Entrance Program and the University of Washington (UW) Academy for Young Scholars housed in the Halbert and Nancy Robinson Center for Young Scholars are two of only 21 early university entrance programs offered in the United States. Due to the uniqueness of the participants and the programs, there currently exists a significant gap in the literature associated with the long-term impact of early university entrance programs. This article shares specifics of the early entrance programs and reports the preliminary results of the 35th-year follow-up study of the Early Entrance Program and the first alumni study of the UW Academy for Young Scholars. Findings relate to graduates’ personal, academic, and professional lives since they graduated from the university.