The third year of high school is known as a time to explore options for the future. At the end of the third year, most students will have a good idea of what their path is through their final year of high school and on forward.

For Warren Li, the timeline is compressed.

Li, a current senior at Pattonville, started his high school career as a part of the class of 2015, but will be graduating with the class of 2014 to continue advancement in his education. By the end of the 2013-14 school year, Li will have all required credits to move on from Pattonville.

“If I stay here, there will be nothing else to take,” Li said.

For Li to accumulate all the credits necessary to graduate early, he had to do a lot of work. Taking online and summer courses were a couple ways he achieved this. He spends a lot of time working to make sure that when he applies to college, they will see that he’s “taken just as much, if not more” than other potential applicants.

However, he still finds time to get involved at school by joining the robotics club.

While Li’s main focus this school year is academics, he is also putting more effort into the club, the one thing about high school he says he will miss most when he moves on to college.

His goal is to get into a competitive school. MIT is the school he hopes to be admitted into, but he will also apply to schools such as Washington University and Carnegie Mellon.

For now, Li is enjoying what is his final year of high school.