Plenty of us know our IQs and I’m willing to bet there are a good number of us on CC over IQ 130, or 150 for that matter. Really. I don’t think you’re as alone on the curve as you seem to think.
I’ve heard many younger kids going to community college or local universities but ones going to top colleges are very rare. I wonder how these child prodigies turn out as an adult, socially, emotionally and professionally, stay success stories or loose air after a while. We hardly hear about any follow up on these cases, just like we hardly hear about kids who get into all Ivies.
I don’t know if that’s true. It seems like in some of the anecdotes, they end up being a prof. Which is obviously a great outcome - but lots of kids become profs too, without going to college at 13. Does anyone think these prodigies only reached that level because they rushed into college at 13?
I’m arguing that it’s quite possible they’d get more out of college if they waited until they were older. Will forcing them to be “bored” for a few years - which will likely cause them to either learn more on their own, or maybe branch out and become more well rounded - really hinder them?
BTW we don’t use the term “the retarded” anymore to describe people with intellectual / mental deficiencies.
My dad started college at 12 in India. He told lots of stories about his professors lifting him up (we weighed about 80 lbs) to write proofs on the board. He was pretty lonely but was adopted as a mascot by the other students. When he finished he moved to the US for graduate work at Chicago and Michigan. He lived the life of an undergraduate while completing a masters and Ph.D and working in a lab to put himself through school.
It all worked out for him, just as it will for other precocious students. He had a great social life with other students, became an amazing chef in college, and then had a long and fruitful career in defense and engineering. He had almost no parental input after age 13 or so. Eventually others catch up with them, and they learn to socialize in college rather than high school.
@SculptorDad - I’m not completely sure which point you’re making.
I think that as you push a kid ahead, eventually he will (might) reach a level where he’s “average”, and suddenly he has to study. I can easily imagine that a 13yo might be less well equipped to deal with this fact. Whereas if he wasn’t pushed so far ahead, presumably he would still eventually get to a class that he had to study in - at which point maybe he’d be more equipped to deal with it…
This is a girl I met at a piano workshop at UT when we were in high school. She was a genius who became the youngest person to get a Rhodes scholarship. I lost touch with her, but when I googled her, it looks like she dropped off the edge as far as academics go. I can’t find that she did anything after she got out of school.
I met another similarly bright girl from England - she attended my high school for a year while her dad taught at UT. She ended up working under Stephen Hawking. I got in touch with her after I happened to turn on “Nova” and she was being interviewed about string theory!!! That was wild.
Both these young women were very social and got along great with other kids. I enjoyed knowing them.
@Pizzagirl, “The older I get, just kicked back and enjoyed the ride and other people around me.”
One point I agree with you is that it gets easier as you get older. But please notice that grown ups often do not accurately remember what happened when they were really young.
It is much more difficult when you are very young, when majority of kids are still maturing logic and morality. For example, if other kids are killing bugs and frogs for no reason but having fun, and are unable to see your simple logic of why they shouldn’t or just to have simple civilized logical debates on anything, it’s harder to just kick back and enjoy the ride. Your conscience won’t allow it.
When you get to high school, you can more easily find some kids with enough logic and moral compass that you can comfortably hang around, especially if you are in advanced or honors courses with a grade or two skipped, and the school is private or otherwise in a good district where average intelligence is already higher than the national average.
But I imagine that it will be still difficult if your high school is not of high standard, and your intelligence is “severely” higher.
As someone else mentioned previously, it depends on what the alternatives are. Questions whose answers may vary from one student/family to another:
Can the student stay in high school, but take courses at a local college in those subjects where s/he is advanced beyond what the high school offers?
If the student is advanced beyond high school in all or almost all subjects, what is the best option? “Home school” but really take all courses at a local college while “still in high school”?
Is an academically elite high school with highly advanced offerings an option (from an admissions, cost, and other logistics point of view)?
@thshadow , " presumably he would still eventually get to a class … more equipped to deal with it."
Studies with cases show that if he reaches that point in too late age, in high school age, he is more likely to academically fail because he has already developed bad study/work habit and his potentially good brain has never developed ability to focus longer than 5 minutes. Our brain ditches or under-develops functions that are unused/under-used for years.
I mean, one doesn’t automatically get equipped with the desirable qualities and skills simply by aging. It takes training and practices.
I have posted this link several times over the years about the “Profoundly Gifted”…
http://www.hoagiesgifted.org/underserved.htm
So far, I do not believe anyone has read it.
When I was 3 and entering nursery school (I have a late Dec birthday and was always young for my class), I knew how to read. The teacher didn’t believe my mother, and thought I had just memorized whatever children’s books were read to me, so she gave me some really hard adult book that I wouldn’t have seen and lo and behold I read it out loud. I remember this!! But still, I’m glad that for whatever smarts I’ve ever had it still kept me at least within spitting distance of mainstream. And that my parents, while they were certainly proud of my academic achievements, still wanted me to have at least somewhat normal socialization with peers.
Thanks for that article @granny2 ! Very interesting.
@wis75 I live in California so it is important if you can speak Spanish. I assume the same is true for Florida. In California it is considered very politically incorrect to refer to people with intellectual disabilities as retarded. One of my sons is in a home for people with intellectual disabilities . I think the people who work in that field are very dedicated and outstanding individuals.
I’m actually pretty shocked to see someone in this day and age use that term , not once but twice.
Wow. I’m seeing a new level of arrogance here! I’m glad most of y’all have dumbed down your posts so those of us who might be pretty smart, but clearly not up to snuff, can follow along!
I’m incredibly disappointed that this term is still being used by anyone. I’m 25 and my entire life it has been a banned word in my household. I’ve told others on here before but the only time I ever remember my dad getting mad during my childhood was when people made fun of persons with disabilities- and that included using the “r” word.
PG, you wrote: “But still, I’m glad that for whatever smarts I’ve ever had it still kept me at least within spitting distance of mainstream.” Actually, I suspect you are underestimating your distance to mainstream by quite a bit.
You think there would have been a disadvantage to being further from the mainstream, I believe. Do you have anything to add to your earlier comments that align with that opinion?
Some of the writers in the literature on gifted young people agree with this view. They have advanced the concept of the “golden gifted.” Depending on the source you follow, this goes up to about an IQ of 150 (I know, discredited concept, but a serviceable shorthand). For people in this group, academic work is easy, but social interactions are also generally easy–advantages all the way around. Is that what you meant? (Not meaning to limit your IQ–or non-discredited corresponding number–to 150)
I think “severely gifted” about captures the experience of exceptionally smart people in the US. (I do not mean to include myself in this group.) Incidentally, Norbert Wiener is a complicated example: his accomplishments in cybernetics were substantial, and his development of “Wiener measure” for functional path integrals is foundational for a lot of later work. But personally, he appears to have been rather annoying to his colleagues well into adulthood, due to his apparent need for frequent affirmation of his gifts. (Sorry to say this–still, it seems to be true, based on the biographical material I’ve read.)
Concern about the “severely gifted” missing the prom is misplaced, I think. Prom experiences tend to be a mixed bag in any event (sample of 3).
I also wanted to comment on the disadvantages of advancing so far that one found oneself in the merely average group: I think this is a true disadvantage of radical advancement in elementary school. There would be the combination of the awkwardness of being by far the smallest child in the class, coupled with the disadvantage of being viewed as “merely average.” On the other hand, I think that the disadvantage becomes smaller as the student advances, so that it is much less of an issue for a young student going to college. Furthermore, if the student remains in academics for the long haul, the student is likely to find him/herself in increasingly rarefied company, until he/she is in fact average. At the extreme, I have never heard anyone complaining about being a “merely average” Nobel Laureate.