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<p>We didn’t have to sign a thing, but housing asked if our son would be willing to sign a form so that the university could share with us any medical, academic, etc. issues (as legally, they couldn’t share such matters unless he signed such a form). This was not stated as a requirement of his being there (indeed, he was already moved in before they supplied him with such a form), but something they asked if he would be willing to sign, and he was perfectly fine with it as he’s not big on keeping things from his parents. Now the advisor had to sign something from the MIT lawyers saying that our son would have supervision using lap equipment and our son had to have an individual lab safety session rather than a group one, but other than that, there was nothing that I can recall done as far as liability due to his age.</p>
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<p>They are indeed barred unless the student signs a form waiving their right to privacy where parents are concerned. Now some don’t know this, as even when our son was in undergraduate school and had never been shown such a waiver let alone signed one, some professors told me things like, “I don’t know if I should be sharing this, but your son scored the second highest grade in the class and didn’t seem at all bothered by that. How is that? My daughter is in gifted math classes in her public school and gets VERY upset any time she isn’t the highest scorer” - she was puzzled by why someone so smart wouldn’t care about always being number one. Fact is, it’s because he was smart enough to know there are more important things in life than being number one. Anyway, she wasn’t legally allowed to mention how he did on that exam with me, but my son didn’t care, and neither did I. Other professors also would sometimes tell me how our son did, and I think they just didn’t even think about how they legally shouldn’t be doing so (where the one professor did wonder and at least one knew he could not, so did not).</p>
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<p>Because it can give them top students. I think my son is the only person at his university to ever win the statewide business plan competition for undergraduate and graduate students, for example (he also won the most valuable employee cash award for that competition). Another early to college kid at our son’s U won a Barry Goldwater award (our son was an honorary mention at age 11 for this and could have applied again when he had more research under his belt, but didn’t bother), which universities like to rack up their numbers on earning just like the Fulbright and Rhodes and such. Another (who starred there at age 13) landed one of only 12 spots in the Harvard Medical School MD/PhD program the year she and my son graduated; her AIDS research at age 16 had been a cover story of a major science journal. Some schools know the odds of having good things come from these students is higher than the odds of having bad things happen and thus are willing to take the risk. While the president at our son’s alma mater had no clue of our son’s ever applying there until after he was already a student there, he was thrilled to learn they had a 9-year-old freshman. He said to me, “I wanted to start college at age 12 myself, but my mother made me wait till I was 14. I credit you for allowing your son start so young.” He’s making close to $400K/year now and seems the happiest person on campus (tied with the janitorial staff) so early college didn’t seem to hurt him that I can tell.</p>
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<p>So do we. Before our son graduated from undergraduate school, our son took four foreign languages (despite only needing three courses in one language to graduate from his U; two he didn’t even take at his alma mater), two honors history courses plus lower and upper level geography courses plus honors and upper level psychology courses (the later despite not having the prereqs and still got an A), graduate courses in math despite only needing undergraduate courses to get his bachelor’s in math, an additional CS course after he had already earned his CS degree no matter that it was risking his 4.0 in CS, three physics courses plus upper and lower level chem courses and a pre-med bio course even though he only needed two science courses to graduate, an entrepreneurship class that wasn’t under any category for graduation but just because he was one of the few students invited to take the class (and I received a very nice note from the teacher of that class just a few weeks ago, and it’s nice that professors still keep in touch with our family even years after our son graduated), two P.E. classes, two music courses, a freshman engineering seminar that he again was invited to take due to his math SAT score and only took as the topic seemed interesting rather than for a graduation requirement, an upper level English literature class (due to needing an upper level English class with intensive writing since he used test credit for freshman comp and the Honors College insisted on an upper level English for students who didn’t take freshman English comp for a grade) and probably some other classes I’m not thinking of just now. He had around 170 credits when only 120 are needed for a single degree and 150 for the dual degree he got.</p>
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<p>Our son also worked for a year prior between undergraduate and graduate school, in addition to working internships for three summers while in college and one semester, and in addition to traveling to over 30 countries (three on study abroad programs, and some others on business, and some others on family vacations) before starting graduate school. Again, I think he had a rather full college experience.</p>
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<p>Our son also volunteered at a retirement home (reading to residents, playing piano and organ, just being their friend, etc.) from ages 7 till he moved away to graduate school, and as I noted to another poster who wrote me privately, he even came back at age 15 to give a eulogy for one of the residents who had heard our son give a eulogy at age 10 and begged him to do a eulogy for her when she died. He was also on a community safety committee (helped with a survey and data entry), helped get food donated by an area grocery store to homeless people in the city, was the top fundraiser in the state (they don’t have national awards, so for all we know, he could have been the top in the nation) for the three years he took part in the Multiple Sclerosis read-a-thon and visited a woman with MS, went to the nearest children’s ward of wherever we were for Christmas each Christmas Eve from age 5 till present to deliver new wrapped books for children (each with a number on it so the nurses could see what age and child’s interest the book might be best for), served on his SGA as a sophomore through a senior as well as having leadership positions in other campus organizations (such that he was nominated and admitted to Omicron Delta Kappa, a leadership honors society), read Dr. Seuss books and helped inner city kids to paint toys with his Golden Key honors society group, was a volunteer tutor at his U’s math lab at age 9, wrote for a for-profit county-wide newspaper starting at age 7 as a volunteer (the editor got a letter from our son correcting the newspaper stating that all countries that start with A also end with A along with one other correction and the man asked our son to come in for an interview as he was impressed with his writing), etc. He also was one of 2000 children to win the Disney McDonald’s Millennium Dreamer’s award (an all expenses paid Disney vacation) with over 100,000 children having been nominated worldwide (so he fell into the top 2% for service of those nominated, and those <em>nominated</em> are likely already top 10% for children worldwide), and this was with our only sending on one of the nominations that he got while other kids sent in two or more (we didn’t realize that would even be allowed) and being on the young end to win (the contest was for ages 8 to 16 and he was only 8, so likely had less volunteer experience than many older kids, but perhaps they took that into account). You again seem to think early college experience means one is excluded from community service. it isn’t so.</p>
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<p>Can’t be obvious as it isn’t so. He didn’t “specialize” in college and still isn’t specializing even in graduate school. He purposely picked one of few labs in the nation that has eclectic work being done and he is mixing four different fields, plus still performing on different instruments (he was in a Korean drum group when he first started there, which sounds to me like something I wish we had when I was in college) and taking nice photos on travel and taking courses in a range of areas (though graduate level rather than undergraduate level). And our son’s lab isn’t alone in encouraging a mix of topics in graduate school. You might be surprised to know that at MIT, CS doctoral students aren’t even to take CS courses as the dept. feels by the time one has a CS undergraduate degree, they know all they need to know about CS and should be taking OTHER topics to get ideas of how to mix CS with other fields (at least this is what our son’s suitemate told me)! I don’t think specializing is ever necessary. Some of the most productive people in history didn’t specialize (Franklin didn’t just invent, but was also a politician and writer and businessman and more; Jefferson wasn’t just a politician, but an inventor and writer and businessman and more; Leonardo didn’t just invent, but painted; etc.).</p>
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<p>Only you do, as you continue to find things “obvious” that aren’t even true.</p>
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<p>That much might be true, as at age 7, he already scored higher on a test of culture than most high school seniors nationally and scored post high school level across the board on academic testing given by a psychologist. Nonetheless, he continues to study information in a very broad manner and likely will his entire life.</p>