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Child prodigies find a home on the campuses, by Leo Reisberg

A place for youngsters whose smarts belie their years

JORDAN KUBICKI'S mind is advanced beyond his years, but to hear the 14-year-old talk about his experience as a highschool freshman last year, you would think that his intelligence was a curse. He was unpopular with other students, who would occasionally throw food at him as he entered the cafeteria. He was so bored in his classes that he once pretended to be sick with a cold-and managed to stay out of school for six weeks, he says. What's more, he says, "the teachers don't like you very much if you know all the answers."

This fall, Jordan enrolled as a freshman in the Early Entrance Program at California State University's campus here. He is among 87 adolescents, one as young as 11, who are full-fledged college students at Cal State. The program, one of a handful of its kind, is designed to challenge exceptionally bright youngsters, while keeping them in an environment with students their own age. "For the first time, they're among their true peers," says Richard S. Maddox, the program's director.

Early-entrance programs are also run by Mary Baldwin College in Virginia, Simon's Rock College of Bard in Massachusetts, and the University of Washington.

'A TERRIBLE IDEA'

Some extremely gifted youngsters head off to college alone. This year, students from the ages of 10 to 14 are enrolled at several institutions, including Hood College, Tidewater Community College, the University of Colorado at Boulder, the University of Southern California, and Western Connecticut State University.

But admissions officials and experts on gifted children worry that some students are not mature enough to handle college, and that their social development will suffer if they are separated from students their own age.

Ellen Winner, a professor of psychology at Boston College and author of Gifted Children: Myths and Realities (BasicBooks, 1996), says that sending students off to college by themselves, when they're barely old enough to enter high school, is "a terrible idea." "They don't fit into college socially," she says. "They don't have any friends. They're isolated. They're often seen as the freaks. They're the ones everyone takes pictures of for the newspaper."

Highly selective colleges are reluctant to accept such young people, no matter how brilliant they are. Admissions officials say that when looking at young students, they're more interested in maturity level than SAT scores. "Families and schools are often very impressed by younger students who can do work advanced for their age, and see that in itself as a sign of true intellectual distinction," says Marlyn McGrath Lewis, director of admissions for Harvard and Radcliffe Colleges, the undergraduate divisions of Harvard University. "But it may not necessarily signify the kind of excellence that would make a candidate a good match for Harvard. "We try very hard to admit only people who will thrive in this very challenging environment," she continues. "The issue isn't so much chronological age, as it is maturity, confidence, seasoning. We determine excellence in a variety of ways, but precociousness is not one of them."

Ms. Winner says that instead of rushing off to an unselective college that has no special program for young gifted students, the children should stay on track in a rigorous high school, and hire a tutor for advanced study. Some prodigies who go to college at an early age have a tough time deciding what to do once they graduate, she adds.

ALGEBRA AT AGE 3

Michael Kearney has faced that problem. The child genius mastered algebra at age 3, and graduated with a bachelor's degree in anthropology from the University of South Alabama when he was 10. The Guinness Book of World Records identifies him as the youngest college graduate. But several selective institutions, including Duke, Emory, and Vanderbilt Universities, rejected his applications for graduate programs, so Michael enrolled at Middle Tennessee State University. This summer, at 14, he received a master's degree in biochemistry. (His sister Maeghan, who is 13, just finished her sophomore year there.) His 118-page master's thesis is called "Kinetic Isotope Effects of Thymidine Phosphorylase." His research, he explains, focused on an enzyme that could potentially slow or stop the growth of cancer cells without harming healthy cells.

Michael is now trying to improve his score on the Graduate Record Examination (he scored 1570 out of a possible 2400 when he was 9), hoping that it will prove to selective colleges that he can handle a doctoral program in biochemistry. Michael's mother, Cassidy Y. Kearney, says his many years of college study haven't turned him into a social misfit. "Michael has friends in the doctoral program, but those are his schoolmates," sas Ms. Kearney. "The people he hangs out with are his next-door neighbors, people his age. We always told him he was just in a different school."

A fraternity at South Alabama tried to recruit Michael six years ago because of his 3.7 grade-point average, but university officials balked at the idea. The Greek system, they argued, was no place for an 8-year-old. Michael realizes that he would have felt out of place at the parties. "I'd be the only one spiking the punch with Kool-Aid," he jokes. He didn't exactly blend in during classes, either, especially when his mother was at his side. In a chemistry laboratory, for instance, Cassidy Kearney helped him pour a chemical that could cause male sterility. "At that age, they could be clumsy," she says.

Like Michael, Natashia Lewis faced some obstacles from admissions officials when she tried to get into the University of California at Los Angeles and the University of Southern California two years ago, at age 12. They refused to admit her until she proved she could handle college-level work. Natashia, who received her high-school diploma by taking a proficiency examination in the eighth grade, went to Cal State for a year before transferring to u.s.c. Now 14, she is a sophomore majoring in biology and chemistry. Joseph P. Allen, vice-provost for enrollment and dean of admissions at u.s.c., says he's cautious with extraordinarily young applicants. During admissions interviews, he looks for signs that a young applicant may not be ready for the college environment, such as parental pressure or reluctance on the student's part. "I remind them that education is not a race," he says. "You still have to learn things at your school that have to do with growing up and dealing with students at your own level."

In Cal State's Early Entrance Program, or EEP, students can receive an advanced education and interact with peers, says Mr. Maddox, the director. "Normal social development happens here," he says,

'NORMAL TEENAGE STUFF'

The second floor of the campus's fine-arts building serves as a home base for the students, who are dropped off by their parents each morning. The program offices include a game room, a computer lab, and a kitchen. A part-time counselor meets with students at least once each quarter to discuss "normal teenage stuff," Mr. Maddox says. The students talk about Monty Python and Star Trek, and play the fantasy game Dungeons and Dragons, without being teased by teenagers who might consider their hobbies nerdy. Dating between "EEPsters," as they are known, is common; Mr. Maddox counts about 10 couples in the program. Sometimes he wishes the students spent more time studying. Some freshmen think they will breeze through college, but end up flunking a class or two because of overconfidence. Still, the early-entrance students have a median grade-point average of 3.7.

Many of the EEP students take classes together in the university's honors program. In Honors English 101, for example, 14 of the 24 students are in the Early Entrance Program. Although they sometimes lack the writing sophistication that comes with life experiences, they "bring energy and spontaneity" to the classroom and perform "every bit as well and even better" than the traditional students, says Geoffrey C. Middlebrook, who teaches the course.

RECRUITING GIFTED STUDENTS

At times, the EEP students take some playful ribbing from their older classmates. When George Oh, a 13-year-old who stands less than five feet tall, got up to present an oral report on how some grade-school teachers do not motivate children to learn, a 17-year-old freshman called out: "Can you see over the podium?" George, who went straight from seventh grade to Cal State, was bored in school, so he would read fantasy novels in class. "Once, I hid a novel in my textbook, and pretended I was reading my textbook," he says, with a giggle.

Cal State began the program in 1982, partly to compete with the better-known U.C.L.A. and u.s.c. "We wanted to expose Cal State to the gifted students in the surrounding areas," Mr. Maddox says. Since 1990, the number of students in the program has risen from 15 to 87, which is just the right size, Mr. Maddox says. "It should be big enough to allow normal social cliques to develop, but not too big," he adds.

To qualify for the program, students must score at least 1100 out of 1600 on the Washington Pre-College Test, a standardized exam that is similar to the SAT. They must then take two college courses during the summer and earn at least a B in each one. Applicants, as well as their parents, go through a series of interviews, and if accepted, must enroll before turning 16. The average freshman in the program is 13 years old. Most of the students are white or Asian American. Their parents are generally affluent and live in the Los Angeles area.

FEELING ALONE IN PUBLIC SCHOOL

Like many other students here, George Woo, a 15-year-old sophomore, skipped all four years of high school. He says the Early Entrance Program is a better fit for him. "My thoughts went deeper than most people in the regular school could comprehend," he says. "That's why we feel so alone. In the public-school system, they train you to be sheep and not shepherds. They teach you to sit there behind a desk and take notes. Here, they actually force you to think and take part in debates."

Stephen Sun, a 13-year-old freshman, took a lOth-grade mathematics class while still in the eighth grade. That was enough for him to decide he didn't like high school. Middle-school and high school teachers are "humorless and police-like," he says. "They feel obligated to make you listen to them."

But Charys Scotton, a 16-yearold freshman, says she's glad she attended high school for two years before moving on to college. "High school provided me with a good foundation to start here," she says. "It was a waste of time academically, but the social aspect is really important. That's where you get a lot of those once-in-a-lifetime experiences."

Several students say it has been difficult for them to relate to their former classmates, who are now in high school. "I have one or two friends who I still e-mail, but we don't really hang out because we don't have anything to talk about," says Alice Yeh, an 18-year-old senior.

And outside of their classes, the EEP students rarely mingle with the older students on the Cal State campus. Mr. Maddox says the program's offices provide a "safe mother's nest" to shelter the children from the larger campus community. They're not allowed to live in on-campus housing, because it's "not appropriate," he says. "Most college students leave high school when they're 17 or 18 and begin adult life. That often means drinking, sexual behavior, partying," he says. "When these kids go to graduate school, they'll be 17 and 18 years old, and they'll experience those things in a normal fashion."

Inevitably, though, the youngsters are exposed to some R-rated discussions around the college campus. Stephen Sun says such banter doesn't bother him; he heard similar things in middle school. "We have an equal share of perverts here and there," he says.

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Picture captions. Top right - Charys Scotton, a 16-year-old freshman: "High school provided me with a good foundation." Left - Richard Maddox, head of the Cal State program: "For the first time, they're among their true peers." Bottom - Thirteen-year old George Oh (left) found middle school boring. Stephen Sun, also 13, says it was "police-like."