12-Year-Old Headed to Cornell University as a Student

Parents Forum
121

Had a college classmate a few classes ahead of me who GRADUATED WITH HONORS at 17 from my LAC. Had no problems socially while an undergrad as he had no issues passing as an 18-22 year old undergrad.

From his account, he was so far advanced academically and socially even the local public school admins felt placing him in middle/high school would have hurt rather than benefited him…and from knowing him and other folks like him I can certainly believe it.

He spent a couple of years teaching English abroad at a competitive program before proceeding to a Social Science PhD program, completing it in 4 years, and landing a highly competitive tenure-track position at a respectable university in the NW region of the North American continent.

Still happily contributing to his social science subfield and teaching grad and undergrad courses at his U. Has no problems interacting with students*/people across the academic/intellectual spectrum…but would prefer to be around people at his academic/intellectual level as would naturally be the case with most people from my observation.

As for “missing out” on HS social experiences/events like Proms…that’s very YMMV and those who cited those factors often forget that not everyone regards proms as important or even a factor in their lives.

Also, some students may find themselves so much at odds with the prevailing mainstream in their local communities/families that “missing out” on having folks from their hometowns/parents/family visiting them in college is not only a non-factor, but a great blessing.

Lost count of how many college classmates and colleagues after college felt happier to leave their parents/families/hometown neighbors/classmates behind for good upon going far away to college and permanently relocating away from their hometown area/state because they were bullied/harassed/violently assaulted for being profoundly gifted, academically above-average, being arts/theater/music nerds, moving away from the fundamentalist religious/social mores of their local areas, sexual orientation, etc. And these cases are instances where the parents/families/hometown neighbors’ interests can be diametrically opposed to the interests and well-being of the student concerned.

  • He's received rave reviews from students on various Prof rating sites despite his being so profoundly gifted and assumptions by some that folks who have been accelerated as he has been can't relate to average folks. On the flipside, I have had a few teachers/Profs whose attitudes/teaching styles were such that only those who excelled in their fields liked them and the vast majority who were merely above average and below detested them.....and none of those teachers/Profs were anywhere near as profoundly gifted nor accelerated academically to the degree that 17 year old college graduate friend/college classmate was....

@wis75

And even if one’s average, parents and others who share similar values in those areas sometimes try to impose their values even after the late teen/adult child has already expressed he/she’s not interested.

A friend in his mid-'30s came to me a few weeks ago to ask for advice and be a sympathetic ear on how to deal with parents who are STILL nitpicking on him for leaving their fundamentalist religious faith nearly 2 decades ago. Add to that a high dose of hypocrisy for nitpicking him for his weight…especially considering his parents are far far worse than him in that department.

@QuantMech

I’m shocked no one did anything regarding your child getting assaulted unprovoked twice by a classmate for any reason.

In the academically gifted programs I knew of/been a part of growing up, physical assault…especially unprovoked is one disciplinary infraction which would have been considered severe enough to warrant a suspension or even permanent expulsion from the program to ensure the safety of the rest of the gifted student community.

122

“She [QM’s daughter] would not tell [her SAT scores]. He hit her face. (snip) She would not say. He hit her again.”
“In another incident, involving two different students, a disagreement in the gifted and talented pull out program resulted in a boy’s breaking a girl’s front tooth when he slugged her.”

Oh, for heaven’s sake. Can we stay on topic? The presence of bullies or bad kids who hit others (and the adults who excuse it) has nothing to do with whether it is a good idea or a bad idea to advance intellectually precocious kids. These boys needed to be disciplined, and hard, because hitting someone isn’t appropriate. It wouldn’t have mattered in the least if they had hit a gifted girl, an average girl, or a slow girl, and it wouldn’t have mattered in the least if they themselves were gifted, average or slow.

123

cobrat, I am not sure that any of the teachers observed the hitting. It happened in the hallway between classes. My daughter did not tell anyone other than me. I still am not sure whether I should have done anything or not.

The other instance involved elementary-school students (neither my daughter nor the boy who hit her, later). I think it was dealt with in a way that was appropriate to elementary-school students.

Over the normal 13-year span of pre-college schooling, quite a lot that is adverse can happen to students (gifted or not). There are more stories of things that happened to my daughter and her friends, of course.

124

Wondering if reporting or confronting the boy the first time he hit your D might have prevented the second occurrence.

125

Of course there are bad things that can happen in schools (bullying, etc.). It’s not somehow “worse,” however, if that bullying happens to gifted kids than to average-intelligence kids. It needs not to happen, period.

126

Yeah, PG, it can be caused not to happen by letting the gifted kid move on to college. :slight_smile: Also, if you consider the context, if my daughter had not been participating in the talent search to begin with, the boy would not have had any reason to ask about SAT scores. Ditto for the argument between others in the gifted and talented pull-out program.

If you or your child has been in a situation where you can “run rings” around the other students in mathematics or something else, have the other students resented it? I think whether this happens or not depends a lot on the skill of the teachers, and not only on the ability of the student to deflect problems. It also depends on the community and other families’ thoughts about academics.

127

Being arrested after committing a crime may scare some kids straight. It may not affect others, though.

However, letting him get away with it only gives him the message that criminal behavior is acceptable, leading to more criminal behavior.

128

Re HarvestMoon, #124, yes, I am wondering about that, but also wondering whether reporting it would have caused more problems than it would have prevented.

129

I’ve been reading this thread and have been alternating between fascination, incredulity and outrage as I read.

“Retarded”? Really? As if these people are somehow “less than” and something to look down upon? I’ll take such a person over that nasty implication and offensive wording any time. My parents lived next door to a group home for “The retarded”, and they were the nicest people you could meet. When my father passed away, these folks mowed mom’s lawn, shoveled her snow, took out her garbage and checked in on her often. In fact, one of them found her when she suddenly passed away and called 911. The entire group home came to her wake and expressed sincere condolences. I am appalled that someone who is a self-proclaimed profoundly gifted person is so callous about such people.

There’s also a continuing sub-thread here that profoundly gifted people are experts in everything, all the time such that they couldn’t possibly relate to the “norms” as I once saw someone refer to the general population. Really? You folks are so advanced in everything that no one anywhere of average IQ can teach you anything? You’re advanced in art, music, sports, gardening, EVERYTHING? There are many types of intelligence, as has already been mentioned, and being able to finish an entire book of Sudoku while others struggle all afternoon with one puzzle doesn’t make you special.

I am mother to three gifted kids, ex-wife of a profoundly gifted man, whose best friend is even more intelligent. What makes them who they are isn’t how fast their brains work. One can’t draw a straight line but can fix anything with a moving part without picking up a manual. One can’t read a note of music but excels naturally at any outdoor challenge presented to her. One is an engineer with a raft of accomplishments who can also ski, play music professionally and yet struggles with social interactions.

All of these people have friends of various ages, interests, jobs, hobbies, etc. Not one of them is so focused that they ONLY want to surround themselves with like-minded, same IQ types. My youngest D is an accomplished dancer and singer, but not to the level of one girl who is attending college on a music scholarship. She also uses “big words” and loves a good intellectual debate, but she’ll talk hair styles with anyone similarly inclined. She’s also got a large group of church friends, some of whom never even went to college. And? So what.

The 12 yo in the OP, like MOST people, probably has interests that don’t involve only one group of people at all times. Maybe he plays baseball. Maybe he loves comic books. Maybe he builds models or listens to hip hop. Maybe he’s a 12 yo who excels at some things but not others, like pretty much all of us, and his parents know how to balance all of those interests for him.

130

@ucbalumnus I don’t think anyone is talking about reporting it to the authorities. I meant reporting it to the school or having a conversation with the boys parents. I am always concerned about the message being sent to the child that was hit.

131

One selling point of the private/parochial schools in the NYC area…especially to kids who were academically engaged or gifted was the fact bullying/assaults against them were not tolerated and would usually result in the violent students getting suspended with in school detention or if the behavior continues one more time, permanent expulsion with no appeals.

A selling point as one common perception among parents in my old neighborhood and many other parents and classmates/colleagues who were academically engaged/gifted from across the US was how their public school district admins, neighbors, and sometimes even other parents either minimized or even took part in the bullying of academically engaged/gifted students because of their academically engaged/gifted status.

This is a point/experience that doesn’t seem to be discussed much on this thread.

I’d also like to echo @Wis75 's points that not everyone wants/needs the “socialization experience” going through K-12 with one’s peers. Especially considering it in itself is a very artificial experience far removed from life one would encounter in college and post-college adult life.

There’s also the factor that depending on the pool of peers in a given K-12 district or geographic region…the socialization experience may actually be detrimental rather than beneficial whether it was my thankfully missing out on interacting with violent felons/drug(Mainly crack) pushers in my local neighborhood high school or my older relatives…including the heavily assimilated ones feeling the need to limit their teen children’s interaction with middle/HS peers inclined to throw suburban alcohol/drug laden house parties when the host teen’s parents are away for the weekend/week.

132

“Yeah, PG, it can be caused not to happen by letting the gifted kid move on to college”

Bullying and violence are not relegated to the average to below average kids. The ONLY time my D was physically harmed in any school anywhere was in the highly gifted program in our public school system. The kid scratched her face for beating him at some playground game. His mother was mortified and spent the rest of the school year apologizing to her. She also saw one highly gifted kid stab another one with a pencil for irritating him somehow.

Please.

133

There is a school that is dedicated to kids at the 99.9%+ level, which is the Davidson Academy in Reno, NV. We considered whether that made sense for one of our kids, but we decided against uprooting the family to Nevada, and instead decided to settle into a town with an outstanding public school system. This was the right choice for our combination of one highly gifted child and one profoundly gifted child.

I cannot say enough good things about the work that the Davidson family does. For children that qualify, there are many social events and seminars.

134

sseamom, one of the incidents I mentioned happened between students in the gifted and talented program. The boy who hit my daughter also participated in the talent search. I said nothing about interactions with others. Your comment in #132 is not applicable.

135

Re sseamom’s post #129, I do not imagine that I am “special” because I can finish Sudoku problems relatively fast–though no where near as fast as competitive Sudoku players, nor the top 1% on the web site.

When you say that there is a “sub-thread that profoundly gifted people are experts in everything,” could you please point to the comments that give you that impression? I don’t see it, though perhaps it is there.

136

There has been an on-going implication that profoundly gifted people cannot associate with anyone not on their own stratospheric level. It’s not stated outright, but I can’t think of any other reason it would puzzle someone about how to respond to a person who enjoys “average” hobbies done in an “average” way. Or why it’s ok to look down on “the retarded” or smirk because the kid who beat one at soccer can’t do highly advanced math. Or whatever else has been mentioned.

137

@sseamom,

Since you were married to a PG man, I know you get how they are asynchronously gifted. Extremely capable at some things, average at others, way behind at some.

I think the point others were trying to make is that it when it comes to school, profoundly gifted kids can actually do very poorly in an average school system due to social issues and boredom. Their performance can increase, often dramatically, as the work becomes more challenging.

138

Re. post #133- Davidson was an incredible help for us, both financially and social-emotional support-wise.

139

I think that my comments about experiences in my daughter’s school are actually on topic. The issue at hand is the college course attendance by a “severely” gifted student who is middle-school age. A disadvantage of this being raised by many posters is that the student will lose out on normal social interactions with his age-mates.

In making the comparison, it is important to compare real vs. real situations. So the actual social environment in middle school and high school is quite relevant to a family trying to make the best decision for their child.

As I understand it, the parents are moving to Ithaca with the young man. This is rather different from sending the student off to college without parental presence. I advocated early in the thread for extra-curriculars with the student’s contemporaries. It seems to me that the social interactions with age-mates can be gained in this way, especially since the parents are around to drive the student to various community events–cultural, athletic, artistic, Garden Club if relevant . . .

140

Yes, @hebegebe I do understand that. But it seems from some comments that some here believe that it’s not possible to relate to neurotypical people if one is profoundly gifted.

My ex hated school and skated through it, even through college and grad school. Probably a Davidson-type program would have been best for him.