Mississippi teen becomes one of youngest people ever to graduate law school

One of my best friends is a genius and went to college at age 15. She had no social life because she had no way to relate to the people around her. She was in college for 3 years and was just starting to find her footing when she completed all her classes and graduated. Then she was just thrown straight into the workforce, where I met her. She was the youngest employee for quite awhile before I got hired (we're the same age). She did software dev, and I worked in IT while finishing up grad school. She felt her entire childhood was stolen from her, and she was totally burnt out by the time she was 14. Prestige is all her parents cared about. She studied so aggressively that she straight up doesn't remember from age 8 to 15 now.

Anecdotal experience with being younger than your peers here. I was no prodigy, but I was a bit "accelerated" as a kid, I skipped a grade in elementary school and had a summer birthday so my k-12 years were spent with a peer group two years older. I didn't drive until I was a high school senior and graduated high school at 16 to go straight to university. It kind of sucked and I wish I didn't do it. The maturity gap is much more pronounced in children, was bullied a lot, it made me kind of a douchebag to kids my own age, took a long time to find good friends (though I definitely did), and like you said, there's no prize for finishing early. As an adult none of that shit matters and I still have a normal job and life like everyone else. I wouldn't say I turned out particularly smart either, I interact with people daily who finished school on time that I feel are much more intelligent. Keep your kids with others their own age if you can. They can go to f****** Harvard at 18 and still turn out great.

The problem is that such a kid really doesn’t relate well with their peers. The prodigy kid’s peers are for them like playing with kids several years younger (which lots of kids don’t like) but they don’t have the emotional or physical maturity to relate to people at their intellectual level. So either way they don’t fit in. There’s not a great solution either way, just to have empathy that being exceptionally gifted is not all positives.

A lot of them aren't actually prodigies. They're just kids who were pushed to do a lot of work. They're smart, but no smarter than the kid who graduated on time and did all advanced classes and loads of extra curricular activities. Meanwhile social skills are as important as smarts when it comes to being able to achieve in the workplace (and to be happy in life).

I don't think parents of certified geniuses/prodigies pushing their kids into such an academically accelerated life is the answer, but as a current parent and former "gifted kid" I do genuinely feel for parents who are raising children in the top 0.1% academically. I wasn't a genius by any stretch, but I did very well with very little effort in school throughout my childhood. Teachers and administrators encouraged my parents to let me skip grades multiple times and my high school principal personally asked them to put me on a track to graduate early, but I didn't want to do that so they didn't make me (which I'm grateful for). That said, I was never remotely challenged by any school work I did even when taking college/AP courses. That translated into college kicking me square in the d*** when, regardless of your intelligence, time management, good study habits, and personal organization skills are *required* for success, none of which I had developed beyond the bare minimum that was sufficient for maintaining a just-shy-of 4.0 GPA in high-school. I ended up getting my shit together eventually after stumbling in my college journey *multiple* times, but those failures cost me a lot of money in student loans, confidence in myself, and years of life spent learning lessons kids "less gifted" than me learned far earlier than I did. All of that to say, I don't think sending gifted children to college in their early teens makes any sense, but finding a balance between that and letting gifted children coast through their childhood with zero academic challenge must be remarkably difficult, and if you mess it up you either end up with an academically successful young adult who was robbed of their childhood or a former gifted kid who struggles to transition into college and early adulthood because they are completely unfamiliar with navigating difficulty and failure in their academic life.

The few i have known, were not happy people later in life.

It cuts both ways as well. All universities have a population of vets - folks that did 4 years in the service and are in college on the GI Bill. They're not that much older than the other students but they have WILDLY different life experience and they almost universally build their own social community on the periphery of the general student community. I used to hire them for oversight jobs - like proctoring a lab environment. They were \*really\* good at not tolerating the dumb shit.

Yup. This happened to my cousin. It was very isolating. Some of her peers were 10 years older than her.

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If you have a choice to socialise with ppl that you have nothing to talk about, you may as well find joy at just scoring the next levels and living your own life. Not every prodigy will be forced to do that at a gun point. Some will just do.

My friend’s older brother had a 13 year old roommate his freshman year of college. He was in the honors dorm and only ever referred to his roommate as “the kid”. It was awkward for him since he was 18 and had a genius child he felt responsible for. Apparently the kid was really good at video games so they bonded a little but I can’t imagine what that experience was like.

I'd hate run into him, imagine a lawyer that's never known fun or joy, only the cold embrace of law textbooks.

I don't know, I push my kids into doing things and they never listen.

A kid that smart and focused likely has a hard time putting up with normie kids his own age.

You’re under the impression we need even less intelligent people working in our legal system right now???

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Hoping adulthood is kinder to you

99%ile on the LSAT is pretty impressive

8th grade is a normal time to learn algebra

That was kind of their point. At 18 you’re still a kid, a lot of people are living on their own for the first time. I’m sure some of them did laundry at home before moving out, that was an example

Off the cuff example. But that poor kid.

As someone with a family member who lawyers for deloitte, I can tell you it is an incredibly boring and soul crushing job

Cool. I work in this profession. I know what it is like. I would never, ever suggest someone do what he did. 

This is the move. Parents had me start school a year early, got in gifted early, parents declined grade skipping because I was already way too socially immature. So I graduated high school at 17, then blasted through undergrad in 3 years, but did a second major to use a fourth year of scholarship to ultimately just graduate at 21 before grad school. Being labeled as the immature kid in your class *sucks*, and I'm glad it wasn't worse than a single year. But I liked learning a lot and knew what I wanted to do, so it was far from torture.

My family moved often when I was a kid, (mom was chasing the jazz singer dream), and as a result, we were frequently tested to see where our placement would be. My one triplet brother and I were consistently asked to skip a grade. We always said no because it would leave our other brother behind. What sucks is he was just under the threshold for their metric to determine whether or not one should skip a grade. 

my parents did the same shit.. while being on my ass about everything. thankful for that, definitely would’ve had a different route.

Maybe not as good because social skills are a big part of being successful as a lawyer.

I'd go full Karen if he was my doctor 

I really don’t understand adding on a specialist LLM after completing a JD, why not focus on the bar, and if you’re still itching for academic pursuits, do a PhD. Seems like a waste of his clear talents.

Exactly. In a time where billionaires are basically in control of our highest lawmakers, why not have a fresh young face to buildup to the point of taking over when the old guard is no longer. I bet hey would love to never pay their fair share and continue to hoard all the wealth generated for them.

Loyola New Orleans is not a top 70 law school. Its 135.