ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. – An 11-year-old boy graduated from college Saturday – and he’s not done with his education.
William Maillis walked across the stage at St. Petersburg College in St. Petersburg, Florida, where he earned his associate’s degree, according to Bay News 9. He plans to transfer to the University of South Florida for his bachelor’s degree.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2018/07/23/11-year-old-graduates-college/818815002/
Really amazing.
Why would you do this to your kid? He could have slowed down a little and been physically mature with his peers, and he’d still be a genius.
Some kids just want to learn and learn at great speeds. They’re different. Forcing them to move at most people’s speed is as cruel as putting a kid with an IQ 70 in a regular class and expect him to fit in, grow, and be filled. For what it’s worth dual enrollment is very common in Florida and there are lots of 15-16 year olds in dual enrolled classes. Sure, a 10 year is totally different socially from a 15 year old, but the 10 year old would be very different from other 10 year olds but at least in that situation he was appropriately placed academically - think of other kids who enrolled in regular (not cc/de) colleges (at TCU or Cornell).
I always wonder where the kids who graduate from college at 15 or 16 end up? When they’re 30 or 40, are they more successful than others their age who followed the typical educational path?
@simba9 The super genius, years-younger boy I went to high school with is now married (happily, it seems but this is from a light FB stalk) and a professor at Johns Hopkins.
@JenJenJenJen I can imagine a fair number of them become professors.
I stalked the girl I knew who was the youngest Rhodes Scholar ever at the time. She got her bachelor’s and master’s degrees from JHU when she was only 18.
https://newsok.com/article/2052505/rhodes-scholar-will-study-further
I can’t find much out about her career. Not sure what happened.
^Looks like she’s at UBC in Canada. For a professor (I assume) it’s very surprising to have no CV available, no publication list, etc. Very odd. My husband is an (industrial) researcher roughly her age in computer science and his name is all over the web in terms of publications.
^Yes, it’s curious. Thanks for finding where she is - I didn’t even know that. She’s listed as a grad student! It looks recent, because there’s a photo of her.
I met her at a piano performance workshop at UT-Austin. She was a talented pianist, flutist, and fencer, in addition to being a math prodigy. A very nice person, too. But she was an OU fan, so that was a problem. 
@MYOS1634 I don’t think the only option to learn is to go to college especially at 10. Especially today with so many online resources and other outlets to learn. I learned tons in college that had absolutely nothing to do with scholarly pursuits that just is not possible to do at 10. I’m also not talking about partying, etc.
I’m not really talking about the 16 year old kids that graduate high school early and go on to school, I’m actually fine with that. But at 10? That just seems to rush life a great deal.
I’m of two minds about these stories highlighting highly gifted kids who go to college extra early. On one hand, it’s unlikely that an 11 year old ready for college astrophysics can find the intellectual stimulation he needs in a public middle or high school, nor is it likely he’d fit in with same-age peers.
On the other hand, I do wonder what he’s missing out on in terms of social and emotional growth. He may have the intellect of a much older person but he’s still a pre-adolescent boy. This boy’s comment that he wants to have his PhD by 18 smacks of academic competition for competition’s sake, and I wonder how much his choice of academic pursuit is driven by still living at home with his minister father. Also, in these stories you often see a kid graduating from a 3rd or fourth tier school and I wonder if by slowing things down a bit they could have had the benefit of working with the bright lights in their field.
In the end I guess we have to trust that the family is doing what’s best for their child. I just hate to see the media turn it into a youngest/best story that encourages other families to try to match his accomplishments, kind of like the stories about kids who receive acceptances from 50 colleges or climb peaks at absurdly young ages.
It looks like she’s this person, working for an academic consulting company,
Thanks, Sue! Maybe I will contact her.
Another girl I knew in high school, Fay Dowker, did her PhD under Stephen Hawking (she was in the States one year while her dad taught at UT). She was another student who was accelerated through school - she was at least two years younger than me and in the classes I was taking. I happened to turn on Nova one night and Fay was being interviewed about string theory. My high school boyfriend was also accelerated a year in school and ended up getting a PhD in astrophysics. I hung out with brilliant people, ha.
You may have missed that SPC is just the local community college where local HS kids dual enroll. He’s going to attend “real” college now, at USF, likely USFSP so he can live at home and continue his tween boy life, just with appropriate classes. I know there are all kids of emotional development…but Independence will have to wait till he’s in grad school.
As for the “PhD at 18” comment, he’s 11. 18 probably sounds ancient to him
Poor kid.
There was this kid who was 8 years old (I want to say his name was Dragon or something like that) who had a Brazilian father who really pushed him through college. He graduated from UC Santa Cruz at 8 or 9. But then his father got into trouble and once his mother took control of his life he went back to a more normal life. Not sure what he is doing now but I’m not sure if he ever did much.
One of my neighbors is an MIT astrophysicist and MacArthur “Genius Grant” winner who started college a bit early but seems to have received her BA from a high quality university at a standard age. Her social skills are a bit off but I think it’s just because she doesn’t have patience for certain things most of us accept. For instance she doesn’t celebrate Christmas with her kids, not seeing the point in lying to them. She often comes off as brusque or even a bit rude in conversation, but I don’t think she means to be; she just moves at a different pace from most of us. This is from a story on her,
(names redacted)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adragon_De_Mello
Sounds like a sad story. He graduated at 11, at that time a record, but spent time in foster care and although a college graduate he enrolled in junior high under an assumed name. As of 2003 he was working at The Home Depot.
A much older female relative of mine who was crazy smart and graduated Cornell at 19:
Scientist → Lawyer → Federal Judge → Retired → Consultant with a billing rate equal to a Partner in a top NYC Law Firm.
BTW, she was embarrassed by her billing rate!
This sounds like a version of homeschooling in some ways. Community college dual enrollment followed by taking classes at a nearby university while living at home seems reasonable if the high school doesn’t provide an adequate level of difficulty for him. He can still hang out with friends and might even be able to participate in extracurriculars with peers if he so chooses.
When I had one kid, I really thought I knew what I was doing. After three, I knew less and less. I don’t judge anyone’s choices anymore.
Good to hear he is going to continue with his education even after he turns 12-years-old. Good choice. Smart kid.