Did you know that the the holder of the world’s youngest postgraduate and the Guinness World Record's youngest university graduate of all time graduated at the age of 14?

At the age of 10, when most kids are still playing hide-and-seek, and are dreaming about what they will become when they are older, there are an altogether different group of children who attend college before their 10th birthday! Referred to as geniuses, these kids admitted to college so early showed impressive skills and above-average intelligence compared to their counterparts who are two decades older. While some of these prodigies were homeschooled, others come straight from the public school system.

Culled from the site oldest [dot] org and TheGuardian, read on to learn about the youngest kids ever to attend university:

1] MICHAEL KEVIN KEARNEY is the youngest kid to go to college at the age of 6. He graduated college at 10 years old with a degree of Associate Science in Geology. Aside from being a college professor, he is a game show contestant who has won cash exceeding a million dollars. At age 14, Kearney was the world’s youngest postgraduate after he graduated Middle Tennessee State University with a Master’s in Biochemistry. He holds the Guinness World Record as the youngest university graduate of all time. Diagnosed with Attention-Deficit / Hyperactivity Disorder, ADHD, his parents decided not to pursue medication as a treatment option, but instead taught him how to cope with the situation.

2] MOSHE KAI CAVALIN, born to a Taiwan mother and a Brazilian father, at the age of four months, uttered his first word, “airplane,” in the Chinese language. He was homeschooled until the age of 7 when he finished his trigonometry studies. When he completed his education and began working, Cavalin couldn’t drive to his job – he had to rely on his colleagues, since he had not reached minimum driving limit. Cavalin is the youngest employee of NASA and helps the company develop aircraft and drone surveillance technology. With a belief in hard work and consistency, and a strong work ethic, Cavalin attributes his success to good planning and resilience, and insists that he is not a genius. Cavalin, who could fly planes before he could drive, is an author of two books, 'We Can Do' and 'Bully Down'.

3] SHO TIMOTHY YANO was born to a South Korean mother and a Japanese father. From the ages of 2 to 5 years, Yano was reading, writing, playing the piano, and composing. Studying at one of the largest Catholic universities in the U.S., he graduated at 12 years of age. In 2009, he became the youngest MD graduate at the University of Chicago. The once-homeschooled child prodigy appreciates his mother for her efforts in his academic journey.

4] ALIA SABUR was born in 1989 to Julia and Mohammed Sabur in New York. She showed signs of being a genius at the age of 8 months, at which time she began reading. Her IQ skills are purported to be “off the scale,” according to an educator who tested her. After graduating from Stony Brook University, she attended Drexel University for her Master’s degree, and graduated in 2014. After her studies, she went back and taught in her former universities for a year each. Currently, she works in the Advanced Technology Fusion Department at Konkuk University. She is in the Guinness Book of Records as the youngest professor ever at the age of 18, replacing Colin Maclaurin.

5] TANISHQ ABRAHAM is already a fourth-year Ph.D. student at the University of California. He is studying Biomedical Engineering in a bid to apply deep learning to microscopy techniques for digital pathology. At the age of 11, he had already obtained 3 Associate’s degrees, and carried a GPA of 4.0. He has won three medals – two silver and one bronze – in machine learning competitions. Born in Sacramento, this child prodigy used to read and memorize books at the age of 2. By the age of 4, he was a member of MENSA, and at 11, he was making presentations at NASA. On top of these impressive achievements, Abraham is the inventor of a device that measures the heartbeat of a burn patient. In 2014, Abraham received a congratulatory letter from President Obama for holding the record of the youngest person to graduate college in the U.S.

6] RONAN FARROW graduated from Bard College at Simon’s Rock to attend Yale University at the age of 16. From a tender age, Ronan Farrow was always a humanitarian. If he was not fighting for the rights of refugees and the oppressed, he was advocating for the poor. With his relevant stories and impressive reporting skills, Farrow earned himself a spot on the Times’ 2018 list of the “100 Most Influential People in the World.” Farrow won the Pulitzer Prize at the age of 31, and went on to write a book, Catch and Kill. Farrow has worked with some of the biggest names in American politics. In 2009, he worked as an advisor for the Obama Administration. Two years later, he worked with then-State Secretary, Hillary Clinton, as Adviser for Global Youth Issues. He has also worked alongside his mother, Mia Farrow (UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador), as UNICEF Spokesperson of the Youth.

7] JEREMY SHULER, by the age of 2 years old, was conversant in both English and Korean languages. Although homeschooled, Shuler showed great interest in both mathematics and physics, and it was his mother’s physics tutoring that laid the foundation for his physics academic pursuit. According to the University of Maryland, Shuler is the youngest Ph.D student they have, following Stephen J. Smith. He was 16 years old at the time of enrollment. Shuler is the youngest-ever graduate of Cornell University. While still at Cornell, Shuler applied to University of Maryland to study theoretical particles as Ph.D. student, and was accepted.

8] SUJARI BRITT plays the cello – and not just any cello, but a Neuner and Hornsteiner, loaned to her by the Carlsen Cello Foundation. She showed interest in music from a very young age, and in 2014, she was the StayThirsty Winter Spotlight Artist to watch. In 2009, the cellist prodigy played for Obama at the White House. She’s a member of the classical string group JoSunJari, which is composed of her sister, Joelle, and brother, Sunnaj – both of whom both play the violin. In 2015, she was featured in Strings Magazine. Other features include a Time for Kids in Time, and in NBC the Grio’s “100 History Makers in the Making.” She loves to draw, paint, read, and write in her free time. 

9] MAYAKI EMMANUELLA, a Nigerian born in 2009, was 13 years old when she was accepted into the Mary Baldwin University, U.S. to study Computer Science in the spring. She was accepted into the Programme for the Exceptionally Gifted (PEG). One of Emmanuella’s personal accomplishments at age 11, in the year 2020, was the opening of an ICT Academy named ‘CodeKid’, for girls in Abuja, Nigeria. In May 2022, she was nominated as a STEM icon by STEM Kids New York City (NYC). The organisation went on to name her as their inspiration after researching social justice issues around their target audience for their app. Emmanuella was first offered a teaching appointment in the United Kingdom while she was aged 11 at the Southfields Primary School in Coventry, England. Her preferred area of study is in the field of Computer Science.

Sources: Oldest.org and TheGuardianNigeria 

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