Get yourself into Georgia Tech, which has an excellent (read: world class) CS department. If you don't have residency in Georgia, get it before you apply. You

Get yourself into Georgia Tech, which has an excellent (read: world class) CS department. If you don't have residency in Georgia, get it before you apply. You need a job, a drivers licenses, and a residence for X amount of time. Check the local laws. Figure out which of your courses transfer. Figure out how to work the system so you can graduate in two years. You'll be 23 or 24 and have a degree from a top 10 computer science department. Sounds like a pretty damn good life to me. Now let's talk some more specifics. You'll probably need another year to establish residency in Georgia. In that time, you need to make yourself a more attractive candidate so you can get in. If you can, get yourself down to Georgia Tech and get a job around there. A system admin job in the school's IT department would be ideal. Sit in on classes, conference with admissions officers, and call in any favors you have to get a good recommendation from someone in high school. Study for the ACT (or SAT if GT doesn't take the ACT). Honestly with half a year of preparation you can raise your score a ton. A strong standardized test would improve your application a lot. Take classes at a community college for a semester near GT. Get at least two kick ass recommendations from professors there and make sure you get a 3.5 GPA or higher. Note, getting good recommendations is an easy process. Just let your enthusiasm for computer science show, go in to the professors office hours to ask questions, and work on an independent project with them. Honestly, since GT is a public school, there are probably incentives in place to take a certain number of community college students per year and that can help you. Some people here might advise you to teach yourself what you need and try to make it on your own. Let's be realistic. You don't even know if you are capable of working hard yet on highly technical projects. School will teach you that, and give you the ability to get a job if starting a company doesn't work out. To give you a bottom line, you need an associates degree, at least a 3.5 GPA (> 3.7 is much better) in your community college classes, and at least two excellent recommendations from professors there. You also need a kick ass essay, which you should spend a lot of time writing and sharing with people. Any personal connection you can establish with people at the school before you apply is just an added bonus. You can make it happen, and three years from now the world will look completely different.