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

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

#51

Post by Retric »

rtl49 wrote: post #22

“I will never forget the feeling of walking into the lobby of Building 7, looking up, and then touching the pillars to see if they were real. I couldn’t believe I was at MIT. My life and my ambitions moved to another level at that moment.” 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 thi…

I find the idea that the absolute best thing for a highly intelligent person to do is get to collage as soon as possible is a little sad. Life is not a race.

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

#52

Post by russnewcomer »

rtl49 wrote: post #42
russnewcomer wrote: post #30

I applaud this family, and am glad for Ahaan's sake that he isn't just shipping himself off to college, but is going to still have his support structure. 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…

>My point in typing up this story is not to say that I am or was awesome. Are you sure? Being a smart fellow, you must know that your experience is not evidence that this young man was not "pushed" too much and that he will "be fine." That said, my suspicion is that Rungta's early achievement is not cause for concern about his social development. Conducting research, for instance, is an intensely collaborative experi…

> Are you sure?

Well, of course, all of us deal with pride and so part of my motivation to type up the story is that I'm proud of what I've accomplished, yeah.

> Being a smart fellow, you must know that your experience is not evidence that this young man was not "pushed" too much and that he will "be fine."

Of course my experience is not evidence of someone else's experience. However, I have experience being homeschooled, and entering college early, so I think I have a degree of ability to relate to Ahaan Rungta's situation that others in this thread do not. I think my contribution to the thread is to provide a counter-point to those who were decrying his parents for pushing him too hard, or depriving him of a childhood, which can only be provided by personal experience.

Additionally, I think my story demonstrates the variability of how children, within the same family, respond to environmental and parental stimuli. My sisters were fine starting school early, I wasn't so much, and if I would have lived at home during my first year of college, instead of in a dorm four hours away, it would have been different.

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

#53

Post by wodenokoto »

I just don't understand how a 5 year old can comprehend a college level course.

How does he know enough math to follow along any scientific course? How can he be well enough versed in literature to follow along a liberal arts course, or history to comprehend a sociology course?

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

#54

Post by rtl49 »

Retric wrote: post #51
rtl49 wrote: post #22

“I will never forget the feeling of walking into the lobby of Building 7, looking up, and then touching the pillars to see if they were real. I couldn’t believe I was at MIT. My life and my ambitions moved to another level at that moment.” 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 thi…

I find the idea that the absolute best thing for a highly intelligent person to do is get to collage as soon as possible is a little sad. Life is not a race.

I don't believe there is anything in my comment to suggest otherwise. I was simply trying to capture the sentiment that some feel when reading stories like these. I tend to think this feeling results not from a failure to achieve (after all, many of us have still done admirably), but rather the sense of regret that one misused a period of one's life. I didn't mean to communicate that "life is a race" at all.

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

#55

Post by agentultra »

rtl49 wrote: post #50
agentultra wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> These stories attract the attention of some of us because we wish we had been raised similarly. We wish we had been but we didn't live in the right time or place for an upbringing like this. I remember stealing my dad's college textbooks on mechanics and applied mathematics and sneaking them off to school; taking out Byte and Compute issues from the library when they were available... just starving for more all the…

It isn't cause for despair. In the grand scheme of things, none of us is so important and the desire to "achieve" more than we have is, in some sense, a wish to bless ourselves. There's nothing to prevent you from studying those things today, within the constraints of your spare time. If you find the study intrinsically gratifying, I see no reason you should enjoy it any less because it probably won't result in a pro…

It's not so much despair but longing for something that never could have been. My parents knew what was wrong with me but couldn't understand it themselves. They thought it would be best to hold me back so that I learned how to socialize. It was a rough education.

When I do have spare time you bet you'll find me working on a problem, reading a paper, or studying. It's almost like regret knowing that I won't be able to dedicate my life to something I love for the mere circumstance I come from.

When I read about stories like this one I can't help but feel happy for them. They're lucky! They got exactly what they wanted and needed! Not all of us can say the same.

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

#56

Post by rachelandrew »

mkj wrote: post #34

"two-year-old son — already an avid reader" sounds somewhat unusual?

According to my parents I could read at age 3, I can certainly remember petitioning my father to be allowed to read The Hobbit when I was 5. My mother got into trouble when I started school because the teachers didn't know what to do with a 5 year old who could read and write!

I was taught by the "look and say" method, now not used in British schools at least. They teach phonics now. Interestingly my daughter is dyslexic and struggled horribly in school to learn by the phonics method. It was when I started teaching her the old fashioned way that she picked it up.

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

#57

Post by michael_h »

sakri wrote: post #28

"When Rungta turned 12, his family moved to Lowell, Massachusetts, as his parents realized he needed to be in a more intellectually stimulating environment." My friends in Fort Lauderdale are gonna LOVE this!

Ft. Lauderdale has intellectually stimulating aspects, just not of the highly technical variety. The arts scene, however...

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

#58

Post by drcode »

wodenokoto wrote: post #53

I just don't understand how a 5 year old can comprehend a college level course. How does he know enough math to follow along any scientific course? How can he be well enough versed in literature to follow along a liberal arts course, or history to comprehend a sociology course?

Well, the first-level answer would be "work backwards"...

...as soon as you don't understand the math, google it, then keep doing that until you start understanding things (though this is probably more what a 7yo would do, not a 5yo)

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

#59

Post by lmm »

Spearchucker wrote: post #16
littletimmy wrote: post #9

I don't know man, I think there's something to be said about having a childhood. Being from India myself, I know the tremendous pressure parents put on kids to succeed. I hope that this kid wasn't subject to the same.

Agree with you. My wife and I are already arguing over the future of our 3-year-old. She wants him to learn to read and write. I want him to play, have time to be a boy, get in trouble, kiss a girl, and have a care-free childhood. We're so obsessed with money, and forget all about the one currency that really matters. Time. Time to live . I'd rather he were average academically, and experience life exceptionally.

I "had a childhood" in the sense of going to high school. It damn near killed me, and quite possibly would have if I hadn't been fortunate enough to skip a year, or to do a few university-like courses. I look back on those wasted, miserable years and wish I'd had other options - or thought to seize them for myself.

Talk to your child, see what he actually likes. Make sure he knows that he always has a choice - years later my parents told me they thought about homeschooling but didn't think they knew enough to, and couldn't afford a tutor, but they never even mentioned these thoughts to me at the time.

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

#60

Post by rtl49 »

mrdrozdov wrote: post #47
rtl49 wrote: post #22

“I will never forget the feeling of walking into the lobby of Building 7, looking up, and then touching the pillars to see if they were real. I couldn’t believe I was at MIT. My life and my ambitions moved to another level at that moment.” 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 thi…

I'm content with my upbringing, but I think it's worth speculating about alternatives from a personal perspective since at one point we may raise our own children. For all we know, this person night have better social skills, personal development, etc. than those of us who had a "normal" upbringing. Normal should be defined by results rather than popularity. Don't you agree?

I do agree. The concerns are legitimate. In fact, most prestigious schools are hesitant to admit students like this young man because they fear for their social development. (Take the case of Bobby Fischer, for instance.) However, I disagree with the presumption that rapid advancement must result in poor social skills. In fact, I have met people who are living evidence to the contrary.
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