The takeaway from this story is a condemnation of US higher education tbh. Exquisitely gifted 13 year old graduates from college with a major in physics & a minor in math — wants to apply for PhD programs but his parents can’t afford it https://abc11.com/elliott-tanner-college-graduate-university-of-minnesota-physics-major/11788944/
I actually work with "profoundly gifted" kids for a living now, and our school strongly advises against skipping grades, and (especially) against graduating early. There are virtually no benefits to doing so, and tons of drawbacks.
Suppose everything goes according to plan, and this kid gets into a physics PhD program next year. Let's say it takes him 5 years (pretty middle-of-the-road) to finish all the coursework, do the original research, and defend his dissertation. Great--now you're 20, and you're on track to get a tenure track job...about ten years early. 25 years down the line, you're 45 and tenured; someone who took the normal track is maybe 55 and tenured. Now you're middle aged and a tenured professor, just like you would have been if you hadn't rushed through. Probably nobody remembers that you were a child prodigy. You likely do good work, but so do all the other people at the top of your field. What did you really gain here? For the privilege of getting to the end of your academic track about a decade early, you sacrificed your whole childhood, all the normal experiences you'd get as a high school, college, and graduate student, and a lot of social development.
We strongly recommend that instead of grade promoting, kids just take classes and do work that they're intellectually ready for. There's no reason why this kid can't stay in high school normally, but also take graduate level math and science courses at the university. This gives him some semblance of a normal life, lets him do work he finds engaging, and doesn't rob him of his entire childhood and early adulthood development.
At least in my experience, it's basically never the kids who want to do this--it's always the parents. The kids just want to learn cool and interesting shit, which they can do while also being allowed to be kids. If they can take classes at an appropriate level in their area of interest, and maybe engage in some research, they're happy. They don't give a fuck if they get called a grad student or not, unless mom and dad have manipulated them into thinking that graduating from high school at 12 is the only thing to make them interesting.
I actually work with "profoundly gifted" kids for a living now, and our school strongly advises against skipping grades, and (especially) against graduating early. There are virtually no benefits to doing so, and tons of drawbacks.
Suppose everything goes according to plan, and this kid gets into a physics PhD program next year. Let's say it takes him 5 years (pretty middle-of-the-road) to finish all the coursework, do the original research, and defend his dissertation. Great--now you're 20, and you're on track to get a tenure track job...about ten years early. 25 years down the line, you're 45 and tenured; someone who took the normal track is maybe 55 and tenured. Now you're middle aged and a tenured professor, just like you would have been if you hadn't rushed through. Probably nobody remembers that you were a child prodigy. You likely do good work, but so do all the other people at the top of your field. What did you really gain here? For the privilege of getting to the end of your academic track about a decade early, you sacrificed your whole childhood, all the normal experiences you'd get as a high school, college, and graduate student, and a lot of social development.
We strongly recommend that instead of grade promoting, kids just take classes and do work that they're intellectually ready for. There's no reason why this kid can't stay in high school normally, but also take graduate level math and science courses at the university. This gives him some semblance of a normal life, lets him do work he finds engaging, and doesn't rob him of his entire childhood and early adulthood development.
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At least in my experience, it's basically never the kids who want to do this--it's always the parents. The kids just want to learn cool and interesting shit, which they can do while also being allowed to be kids. If they can take classes at an appropriate level in their area of interest, and maybe engage in some research, they're happy. They don't give a fuck if they get called a grad student or not, unless mom and dad have manipulated them into thinking that graduating from high school at 12 is the only thing to make them interesting.
:penguin-love: