12-year-old Jeremy Shuler is set to start his freshman year at Cornell University next week. He is reportedly the youngest student ever to attend as per the school's historian, Corey Earle.
According to The Washington Post, when their child was three months old, Jeremy Shuler's parents were surprised at how he is able to pay close attention and keep his focus on his environment for a long time - instead of the seconds that are usual for infants. At 15 months old, Jeremy already knew about the alphabet and he was able to read both Korean and English on his own at two years old.
"I think I'll really enjoy being at Cornell," Jeremy said. "I've been preparing for college for a long time."
His parents, Andy and Harrey Shuler, met while his mom was working on her post-doctorate in aerospace engineering at the University of Texas at Austin. They are both aerospace engineers.
Jeremy went to school at the Texas Tech University Independent School District (TTUISD). It is a flexible online education program that gives K-12 students the chance to earn credits at their own pace.
"Early on we realized Jeremy wasn't really ordinary," Harrey Shuler said. "We briefly considered sending him to a charter school or a school for the gifted and talented, but in the end there wasn't much of a choice because he was way too advanced to be enrolled in any traditional schools. So I quit my career to dedicate my time to teaching Jeremy myself. I have been homeschooling him ever since."
Jeremy took the SAT and advanced placement (AP) exams when he was just 10 years old. He placed in the 99.6 percentile for all college-bound seniors in 2014.
"We have accepted Jeremy into our undergraduate program here at Cornell Engineering," Cornell Engineering Dean Lance Collins said. "While this is highly unusual, we feel that with the strong support of his parents - who will be moving here to provide him a place to live and study - and his unusual talents and thirst for knowledge, he will be able to thrive as an engineering student and take advantage of all that Cornell has to offer."
