16-Year-Old Set To Graduate From Kansas High School And Harvard University
NPR
December 28, 2018 6:35 PM ET

A 16-year-old is scheduled to graduate from high school in Kansas and Harvard University within the span of two weeks.

Braxton Moral, a senior at Ulysses High School, plans to attend the school's commencement May 19, then the university's ceremonies later in the month, reported The Hutchinson News.

"I'm not any different; I just do a little thing on the side," he told NPR. "I try to play it down at high school because if I talk about it, it becomes a divide."

Moral was born in Kansas, the youngest of four children. In some ways, he is just like any other teenager. He loves video games and movies. He plays tennis and goes to church.

But when he was 3 years old, he could "entertain people" at volleyball games by calculating the score's difference in points, his mother, Julie Moral, told NPR. People also said he had a big vocabulary. Still, she didn't notice that her son was gifted.

By second grade, he was getting bused to a different building with third- and fourth-graders for English and math, she said. Then he skipped the fourth grade.

As he got older, he started to become depressed. He was asking questions like, "Why do I exist?" and "What's my purpose?" she said.

His parents took him to a community college for testing. "They thought the machine was broken," his father, Carlos Moral, told The Hutchinson News. "He was like off the scale, beyond an associate's degree."

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Another article with more details is 16-year-old Ulysses High scholar to get Harvard degree

New York Times article: Kansas Boy, 16, Is Set to Graduate in the Spring From High School — and Harvard

Interesting article, Bostonian. Thanks for sharing.

A few things stood out to me as I read the second article:
- His high school has graduated students with associate degrees, therefore seems supportive of achievement among gifted pupils (does not appear to be forcing "equal outcomes")
- Braxton will be 17 years, 3 months at graduation
- He is now 6'2" so blends in with college-age students
- He attended Harvard Extension (online with summer in-person classes)
- He did not qualify for federal aid for his college tuition because he did not have a high school diploma
- In his first attempt, did not qualify for Harvard Law School but plans to try again

One thing stood out to me as I read the first article: He was asking questions like, "Why do I exist?" and "What's my purpose?"
- James Webb, PhD, founder of SENG and Great Potential Press called this existential angst or existential depression.
- Some resources:
1) SENG article, Existential Depression in Gifted Individuals (Sept 13, 2011)
2) SENG, 100 Words of Wisdom (Sept 11, 2013)
3) Book, Searching for Meaning: Idealism, Bright Minds, Disillusion, and Hope

It appears the family of the young man in the article made use of a number of familiar HG+ resources, including Duke TIP and Davidson.

The critical change that prevents any other students from following the same path is that Harvard Extension now requires a high school diploma prior to admission to the baccalaureate program, but not to taking courses. Hypothetically, I suppose one could take nearly all of the courses required for the BA, while completing credits for high school graduation (simplest would be to take the HE credits as dual enrollment), take a HS diploma prior to registering for the spring semester, apply for admission at that point, and then complete the BA, which would have HS graduation occurring about six months or more prior to college graduation. If that matters to anyone!

Dual enrollment is probably the most important contributor toward the number of young students completing some level of college degree at the same time as a high school diploma (AA/HS, BA/HS, etc.)