What were you doing when you were 12 years old? Most likely, you were attending middle school classes, hanging out with your friends and begging your parents to let you get the newest flip phone. Well, not Jeremy Shuler. The 12-year-old from Grand Prairie, Texas has just moved to Ithaca, N.Y. with his family to start his first semester of freshman year at Cornell University.
Shuler is now the youngest student to ever attend the prestigious Ivy League school. While the 12-year-old is definitely intellecutally ready for college, living with his parents will allow him to get the emotional support he still needs while working towards his engineering degree. Both of Shuler's parents are aerospace engineers who chose to homeschool him, the Associated Press reports. By the age of 2, he was reading books in both English and Korean, and by age 6 he was studying calculus. At the age of 10, he took the SATs and passed enough AP tests to earn college credit in seven different subjects. Living with his parents will help him succeed without putting too much pressure on him, which is important because of his young age.
Lance Collins, Cornell Engineering Dean, told the AP, "It's risky to extrapolate, but if you look at his trajectory and he stays on course, one day he'll solve some problem we haven't even concieved of." Shuler may go on to be a great inventor, figuring out what we need before we know it ourselves.
Cornell is a favorite university of the Shuler familiy. Shuler's grandfather is a professor there and his father earned his doctorate there as well.
Shuler's mother, Harrey Shuler, chose to focus her time on Shuler's schooling rather than her career when she realized how smart her child was. The parents felt that with Jeremy being so advanced at such a young age, there was no use enrolling him in kindergarten. As for his social life, his parents were concerned that he couldn't seem to get along with others on the playground but told the AP, "when we took him to Math Circle and math camp, he was very social." He has no problem getting along with kids who have similar interests.
After a few days of college, Jeremy told the AP that, "I was nervous at first, but I'm a lot more excited than nervous now." He's already made friends and says he's used to having friends who are older than him from other experiences learning at an advanced level. He's hoping to pursue a career in academia, saying he never wants to stop learning.
