<p>College alum – that’s a great response! Thank you. Still, it seems like some people here are almost envious of these folks and are trying to claim it for their own children.</p>
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<p>The gifted are more likely than the non-gifted to rise to “get ahead”:</p>
<p>[Who</a> Rises to the Top? Early Indicators
by Harrison J. Kell
David Lubinski
Camilla P. Benbow
Vanderbilt University
Psychological Science May 2013 vol. 24 no. 5 648-659](<a href=“https://my.vanderbilt.edu/smpy/files/2013/02/Kell-Lubinski-Benbow-20131.pdf]Who”>https://my.vanderbilt.edu/smpy/files/2013/02/Kell-Lubinski-Benbow-20131.pdf)
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<p>The youths were participants in the Study of Exceptional Talent, which requires a score of 700+ before age 13 on the math or verbal SAT.</p>
<p>“The biggest fallacy used in discussions of whether accelerated learning for prodigies is warranted is to see where they end up vs. everyone else. That is, if the kid in the article is in the top 1/1000 of a percent versus what he can do as an 11-year-old, then he must also be in the top 1/1000 of a percent as an adult. If not, people conclude that the acceleration was a mistake and/or the kid was a fraud.”</p>
<p>That’s not at all the objection. I couldn’t care less if these prodigies wind up being in the top 1/1000 of a percent as adults. That’s not the meaning of life. But life is a journey, not a race to amass credentials as early as possible.</p>
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<p>Starting your career early is one of the most important ways you can contribute to society, and it also improves your own finances. And if the gifted start their careers earlier and marry earlier, they may have more children.</p>
<p>Why do people even care whether this boy has a “normal childhood?” What is normal for most may be the worst possible scenario for others. This boy seems happy and healthy with parents who are giving him the attention and encouragement he needs. He is going to a good college and seems excited about it. If he ends up unable to cope, well, then he won’t be the only college student ever to do so, and he will look in another direction. He is smart enough that he will figure out his own life eventually.</p>
<p>I agree that life is a journey, not a race. Not everyone who goes to college early is trying to achieve credentials as fast as they can. They do not go to college early just so they can graduate early. They go early because that is the next logical step. For them.</p>
<p>It doesn’t make any sense to attend college early simply to fit into a certain timeline (ie. must be youngest person to ever attend college), but it also makes no sense to delay college just to fit into a certain timeline (ie. all 10 year olds must be in fifth grade).</p>
<p>No every 10 year old should be in college, but then not every 18 year old should be either. Why not let people do what is right for them?</p>
<p>Beliavsky – very interesting article and I enjoyed it, but also kind of Duh! Really smart kids are often really smart adults and smart adults are often successful adults. But as it lacked any comparison ( such as the merely super smart or just smart or children of super high achievers or really smart 16 yo ), I think it fails to prove a direct link between prodigy status ( as opposed to demonstrating high intelligence at a more typical time ) and success. Also, I believe the article failed to indicate what percentage of the people followed actually were in college at age 11 or, for the sake of argument, obtained their initial degree more than 4 years ahead of schedule. I think that would be interesting to know. </p>
<p>And Bay and PV, I think your reasoning is sound. However, if we were to extrapolate that idea to emotional and physical precociousness, what do you think of an early adolescent for whom the next logical step is sexual activity and parenthood? Some kids are very responsible and natural caretakers. Sexual precocity is fairly common and the trend is undeniably moving toward development at an earlier age … I know that’s not what you’re arguing for at all and neither am I. Just seems to me that there are a host of differences between taking college level classes ( great if you can) and going to college ( perhaps as important as the classroom instruction, but don’t see any 11-15 yo actually ready for it).</p>
<p>When a very young gifted student goes to college, I think it should be to a place such as UC Berkeley, where he or she will find intellectual peers.</p>
<p>[UC</a> Berkeley’s youngest student unfazed by college rigor
The Daily Californian
October 30, 2012
by AFSANA AFZAL](<a href=“http://www.dailycal.org/2012/10/30/berkeleys-youngest-student-unfazed-by-college-rigor/]UC”>http://www.dailycal.org/2012/10/30/berkeleys-youngest-student-unfazed-by-college-rigor/)</p>
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<p>Well, the poor kid… he doesn’t live in the UC Berkeley’s area. Are you suggesting his parents should uproot the whole family to be near a similarly challenging school? The kid you cite in this article lives in the SF area.</p>
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<p>Note that he actually started taking college courses at a community college. Berkeley also just happens to be a local state university to where they live.</p>
<p>Do you honestly believe that an 11 year will closely interact with his TCU peers?</p>
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<p>Intellectually? Yes; he has proven himself already. Did you watch the clip? He can handle himself. </p>
<p>I don’t think anyone expects TCU peers to become his social circle.</p>
<p>I see parallels with having a baby at age 13 or 14 (like a close friend did, guy was 26, had to marry him). It can work out, but I think most folks would think that college is much more than test scores.</p>
<p>Yeah, maybe it is great for this kid, but the key is the level of support and actually letting him be a kid as well. My 12 year old has gotten perfect COGAT scores in Math twice, in 3rd and 5th grades, and we aren’t pushing him to go further. In fact, he wants to be a chef.</p>
<p>Good luck to him.</p>
<p>With all due respect, there is a world of difference between a 12 year old that got perfect scores on a math achievement test in elementary school and an 11 year old who got an A in Calculus and has graduated high school.</p>
<p>I think the problem here is that CC has a lot of parents with very smart and possibly gifted kids. These are smart kids who will probably do very well in life, but college before 18 probably would not make sense. In this case, and the others mentioned, we are talking about the very extreme academic/intellectual outliers. I don’t think a lot of people understand or are making that distinction.</p>
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<p>What the heck kind of parallels do you see between rape and forced marriage and an 11 year old going to college?</p>