A 12-year-old is off to the Ivy League | Hacker News Reader

A 12-year-old is off to the Ivy League

washingtonpost.com

25 pointsALee18 comments

Unexpected random problem from the article: he couldn't apply to college online because of COPPA.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children%27s_Online_Privacy_Pr...

Is it really worth it though? There are so many opportunities to learn online, should a child like that not rather spend time with children at the same age and get the knowledge via online courses/remote learning? Can't imagine that you can have a proper childhood if everyone you interact with is >6 years older..

It probably wouldn't be great spending all his time at a normal school — that would lead to boredom.

Hopefully he'll have time outside university for socialising.

> should a child like that not rather spend time with children at the same age

I doubt a child as gifted as this would have a "normal" time spent with other children of the same age.

More the reason to put him with children his own age for Jeremy would have to learn new skills on how to navigate with kids below his maturity and intelligence. YMMV

It's interesting that with every other kind of education, we take a hands-on approach to teaching children, yet with social skills its akin to 'sink or swim'. We simply put children in close association with each other, then monitor them to prevent the worst excesses.

Social skills can be taught. From reading individuals, to reading a crowd, to speaking with the proper poise for a certain scenario... these skills are directly teachable. We don't have to rely on hoping that they'll be re-invented by every child who happens to find themselves in an appropriate circumstance.

I'd suggest a renaissance style education, of the sort given to those in the gentleman's class. Teach science, teach maths, teach memorisation and the such, but also directly teach children how to function in society and how to grease its wheels to suit their desires.

I'm not sure about that. I'm not saying this boy's parents pushed him into this path, but by virtue of their own education (mother has a PhD, not sure about the father) they would have provided him with many opportunities for intellectual growth that other kids lacked. So I would assume Jeremy is very smart but not as exceptional as his achievements would imply.

Being smart can be isolating, either from not being able to relate to people or act normal, or people assuming you are arrogant, or developing actual arrogance, but in the scheme if things this is just one of many issues that affect people, and not necessarily that serious. The super-smart shy people I know are not too different from the average intelligence shy people I know.

When you say you want Cornell when you are 12 its a lot more impressive that saying I took online classes when I was 12. Go look at the SV companies. They are filled with people from the IVY leagues or at least good schools.

airbnb CTO harvard

dropbox ceo harvard

facebook ceo harvard

If you read through the whole article he is so so smart I don't think college will really challenge him. He is probably smarter than all the professors there. He seems like he is good at reading so he can probably teach himself most of the stuff. He already has a lot of AP credits. He can probably finish college in 2 or 3 years. Being 15 and having a degree from an ivy league school is pretty good.

> He is probably smarter than all the professors there.

That is not a good perspective to go into a learning experience with. I hope he does not arrive with that expectation.

While I agree that Ivy league is a nice signalling indicator, it is also a very strong networking environment. I've been offered jobs from former school-mates, received funding from another, and started my first company with yet another. I think that it will be difficult to socialize when you are just 12. A great deal of networking is at parties and events that 12 year olds might feel out of place in.

But I wish him luck.

Another story about a child "genius" that you'll never hear about in the future.

why the quotes? whether he ends up burning out early or not, he is undoubtedly a child genius.

Depends on what you mean by genius. I always assumed that people meant by it someone who made an original contribution to the world, did something unexpected and clever in the widest sense of the term.

Most of the few child prodigies that I am aware of haven't done that.

But I don't begrudge him the chance to get ahead if that's what he wants. Starting early means more time to change direction later. Missing a childhood, well, one person's idyllic childhood is another's vision of hell so let's not all judge too harshly.

While I don't know if this is the right path for the kid, or if he really is a genius (from the article he seems very smart) your comment comes across as mean spirited.

Do you not believe in the existence of genius, or that people vary in intelligence? If not, why do you doubt his intelligence? Terrence Tao is an example of a child prodigy who became a famous mathematician, although I would say winning gold in the International Mathematics Olympiad is a more objective standard than admission to Cornell.

I think he/she means to say we never know what they are doing later in life most of the time. I assume you've seen stories about kids who are very intelligent and there would've been news about child prodigies every year since decades so why don't we hear about the ones who are adults today?

My take is that there are those child prodigies making great scientific progress but we don't hear about them because they want to keep their past private.

Although I agree the quotes kinda give a doubtful vibe to the child's prodigy, which I definitely disagree with.

I think the real issue is that once child prodigies turn into adult prodigies, their stories are much less interesting. Of course the WP is going to write a story about a 12 year-old genius, but readers won't be so interested in a 24 year-old wunderkind.

I hope we don't. I hope this is the only article we read about him unless he happens to make a breakthrough in a field we are interested in. I hope the media doesn't follow him. I hope he is able to lead a long, fulfilling life sharing his talent in a way that makes him happy.

People usually hear about child geniuses when they enter post secondary at an early age and less than a decade later when they finish their PhD. Sometimes you don't hear about them because the media isn't interested in their field of study

There was a 13/14 year old in my maths class at Imperial College London. I can't find a reference, but there's a current student that age: [1]

The boy was American, and I understood no American university had been willing to enroll someone so young, so the family had moved to London.

[1] http://www.antonmurray.com/the-worlds-youngest-investment-ba...

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