Homeschooled with MIT courses at 5, accepted to MIT at 15

I think this impressive achievement is more a testament to the role that aspirations acquired during childhood play in determining a person's success than it is a reflection of this young man's intelligence. Yes, the latter is necessary, but it isn't sufficient. I have little doubt that there are many 18 year olds entering MIT's class of 2019 who could have entered at 15 had they been provided a similarly advantageous upbringing.

These stories attract the attention of some of us because we wish we had been raised similarly. Had we not devoted our attention as children to, say, petty family turmoil or a hedonistic preoccupation with computer games, perhaps we would have progressed through life with a singularity of purpose and self-confidence that would have situated us in a better position today. We might have been spared years in our teens and twenties trying to find a sense of meaning in our work, unlike this fellow, who seems to have it figured out.

I won't speculate about his social skills. I've met college students his age running the gamut from borderline autistic to social butterfly. Yes, the sense of "peerlessness" must be a bit alienating, but many of us have had this experience without leapfrogging high school.

Good for Ahaan he escaped it and I wish him the very best of luck @ MIT!

My friends in Fort Lauderdale are gonna LOVE this!

I was homeschooled, along with my two sisters, my entire educational career until college. We all started taking college classes early, my older sister correspondence at 14, my twin and I correspondence at 15. All of us took classes at local colleges before starting 'real college'. All of us scored high on our ACTs, all of us got scholarships to college.

My parents didn't really push us, we were just smart. We had childhoods, I was a starter on the basketball team, and played college soccer for a year. I also read 10+ books a week, played way, way too much Civilization and Total Annihilation, and did plenty of volunteer work, especially at our local public access station.

For my sisters, going to and living at 'real college' worked out well, they both succeeded in their own ways (my older sister graduated with two masters a few days after she turned 21, my twin sister received a lot of recognition from professionals in her field before graduating, was salutatorian, etc), whereas I didn't do so well being away from home and the support structure. I'm lazy, and I thought could just not do assignments I didn't want to and do well enough on other assignments to make up for it. Long story short, my GPA dropped enough to lose my scholarship, and I decided that the private college experience wasn't worth borrowing tens of thousands of dollars for.

So I moved home, finished my bachelors from the state university in town. Snagged an internship and then got a job offer from that company, essentially during my junior year for a full time job, contingent on finishing school.

My point in typing up this story is not to say that I am or was awesome. My point is that I am pretty sure that Ahaan Rungta is a pretty smart kid, his parents probably pushed him less than you think, and that as long as he and his family figure out how to navigate the maturity journey, he'll be fine.