After acquiring his entire elementary and secondary education from OpenCourseWare and MITx, Ahaan Rungta joined the MIT Class of 2019 at age 15.
http://news.mit.edu/2015/ahaan-rungta-mit-opencourseware-mitx-1116
Wow!!
Good for him.
He referred to his mom as a “resource machine”. I love that-I’m getting a t-shirt made 
Excellent story. Thanks for sharing.
How much art, US history, english language and foreign language did he learn? Most Ivies do not want to take 15 year olds because the ending is not always good!
Contrary to popular belief, MIT does have extensive humanities and social studies offerings, some of which are on OCW:
http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/music-and-theater-arts/
http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/history/
http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/comparative-media-studies-writing/
http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/literature/
http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/global-studies-and-languages/
Many of my son’s favorite courses at MIT have been his humanities courses.
Great story! Thanks for sharing!
Now this is a “special snowflake” in the best sense of the phrase.
Did he take any humanities though? Since he was home schooled did he do anything to become socialized?
Knowing MIT as I do, @tiger1307, and being a homeschool parent myself, I would bet the answer is yes on both fronts.
My homeschooled MIT son was definitely lopsided-heavy in math and physics during high school, but he took plenty of humanities. He loves to write, read, and he took lots of college courses in subjects such as Arabic and history in addition to his plethera of math/physics. He also is an extreme extrovert and was MVP on his baseball team, a competitive chess player, a working musician, and a tutor for many years.
My middle son was also a working musician, and was a member of an award winning robotics team. He was an extreme introvert for many years, but through patience, persistence and pushing, he came out of his shell and homeschooling gave us the time needed to draw him out (and to help him deal with his diabetes and other health issues). He’ll be a freshman at an Ivy League next fall.
While there are definitely a wide variety of homeschoolers, and like some public schooled/private schooled kids, there are some that are less social than others, the nature of homeschooling as you have in your mind has changed. You seem out of touch with homeschooling today. The article was necessarily focused on the MIT connection to the exclusion of other things. I will PM you with an article that might help open your eyes more.
Seriously @tiger1307 ? Do you think homeschoolers lock their kids up in a room all day? Homechoolers generally have MORE and varied social interaction than kids in public school settings because they have more flexible schedules and aren’t limited to mostly interacting with kids in their same grade level. My 14 year old is currently at his homeschool co-op where he is interacting with students from 8 to 18 in his Honors Biology, Honors Chemistry and Honors English 1 classes. He spent last night ‘socializing’ with about 30 or so boys in his Boy Scout troop. I could go on and on …
Since MIT has a holistic admissions policy I don’t think they’d let him in with out having taken some humanities classes.
With or without holistic admissions, colleges generally have either required or recommended course work in high school (regular or home school). These include humanities and social studies.
@tiger1307 You don’t think MIT has a thorough enough admissions process? What accounts for their admission rate? Homeschoolers have to provide transcripts of their coursework, standardized test scores, lists of accomplishments, LOR, etc just like every other high school applicant. Many schools require course descriptions, textbook info, reading lists, method of evaluation, etc.
Based on what the student in the article achieved, it is doubtful any traditional school setting could have met his academic needs. Introduction to Solid State Chemistry at age 9? Most 9 yr olds are still mastering basic elementary math.
And what is “socialized?” Is it associating strictly with same age peers in a controlled environment between the hours of 8-3?
Wow, I did not get special snowflake at all from the article.
That kid is driven-his parents evidently did an excellent job of giving him the tools he needed to feed that remarkable brain of his. I love solution driven parenting-the dad opening a cafe in MIT so the kid could be around MIT more-how cool is that!
^^extremely cool
@MotherofDragons - think @overtheedge meant that as a compliment - “in the best sense of the phrase.”
And he sounds like a nice kid.
I’m such a fan of well-done homeschooling. No one needs worry that MIT, of all schools, didn’t pick well.
ps. see his LinkedIn.
@lookingfoward “see his LinkedIn”
Exactly.
oh my goodness, only on CC is “special snowflake” a compliment. I’m having a good chuckle over that one.