13 year old admitted to medical school

[EKS]

2 minutes ago, PaxEtLux said:

 

I meant in terms of reasonably prepping for, comprehending and understanding the labs.  Clearly, doing it in a blur of a single, concurrent 30 hour session would have the same time commitment, but no one would think that is a pedagogically sound way to do things.  I'm curious if you think you'd get as much out of a hyper-condensed, eight hours per day for a week lab course as you did the more traditional sequence.

Personally, I would rather kill myself than do a marathon week of o-chem labs.  It sounds awful, and I agree with you, not pedagogically sound.

ETA: That said, I think that labs in school, be it high school or college, are mostly just a waste of time, so in the end, it probably doesn't matter.

Edited July 24, 2022 by EKS

[TechWife]

I think the fact that she’s admitted to medical school really means nothing - she didn’t have to go through a separate med school application process. Frankly, there aren’t enough slots for capable people to go to med school and it irks me that she will be taking one of them. Is she really that self aware and mature that she’s ready to make a lifelong commitment to extensive training and a career. If she enters med school at 15, graduates at 18 - she is supposed to be able to know what specialty she wants to practice for the rest of her life at 18? I honestly can’t see how she would match to a residency. She would have to have one stellar med school experience. I think most residency programs would see her maturity as a disadvantage for all the reasons people have stated here. At 13 she’s barely out of puberty and into adolescence. I don’t care how smart she is - she has a lot of biological and emotional growing up to do. 

[wathe]

Med school is not a great choice for minors, I don't think.  I don't think any 13yo has the required maturity.  Not many 15yo's either.  NO way in heck I would send my kid to medical school that young no matter how gifted.

Medicine is super gritty.  The human condition, up close and personal, the entire spectrum.  Rotations through teaching hospitals are no picnic. Medicine is death and dying. Patients with end-stage cancer. Horrific social situations.  Addiction.  Assault.  Trauma.  Sexually abused children.  Attempted murder victims.  Pediatric cancer.  Obstetrical disasters.  Patients who are murderers/sex offenders/drunk drivers who've just killed someone . Patents and families who are distraught.  How to give bad news, and then actually doing it.  Nights on call, sleep deprivation, dealing with the hierarchy medical student< intern<resident<senior resident<staff, and the abuse that's baked into the medical education system.  Physical risk of infectious disease, needle-stick injuries, violence from patients.  Tremendous personal responsibility - people will die because of decisions you've made or didn't make.   Doing pelvic exams, rectal exams, other invasive procedures.

All of this.

I saw and experienced all of this in medical school.  We started clinical work in the hospital 1 day per week from the very first day.  By the beginning of 3rd year, all learning was hospital based. 

ETA; this is before residency

Edited July 24, 2022 by wathe

[Frances]

1 hour ago, PaxEtLux said:

 

Are there any chemistry or biochem moms on this thread?  Website says that organic labs are 8 hours a day for 7 (consecutive?)  days and biochem is 8 hours a day for five days.  This seems a little crazy to me (does it include time to write-up the labs?), but I'm curious as to the opinions of someone with more expertise?

My husband and I attended one of the colleges that does one course at a time and chemistry was one of his majors. He took two organic chemistry classes plus one block of organic chemistry lab, in addition to biochemistry. The block of organic chemistry lab would have been 18 days spread out over 3 1/2 weeks. I don’t know exactly how many hours he spent in lab each day, but I recall that he said they often ordered box lunches rather than taking the time to go to the cafeteria, so it might have approached eight hours per day.

With the schedule stated above for 5 or 7 days of labs, it almost seems like some of the pre lab work and lab write-ups would have to be before or after the students were in person for the labs. My son was a chemistry major and it was not unusual for him to spend 20 hours per week for some of his lab courses doing pre-lab work and lab write-ups in addition to attending the lab lectures and actual labs.

[TechWife]

This is a gifted link to the WaPo article. It has more detail on her education to date.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2022/07/20/alena-analeigh-wicker-college-stem/

[Ottakee]

@wathe I wondered about medical school training and if someone younger than 18 or 21 could even be allowed into some of the situations you mentioned.  
 

it is vastly different doing textbook/lab work and being in a medical setting with hurting people and complex medical issues and social situations

[TechWife]

2 minutes ago, Ottakee said:

@wathe I wondered about medical school training and if someone younger than 18 or 21 could even be allowed into some of the situations you mentioned.  
 

it is vastly different doing textbook/lab work and being in a medical setting with hurting people and complex medical issues and social situations

Could a minor  legally agree to abide by confidentiality laws in regard to patients and in regard to proprietary hospital information? Could they be held liable, either criminally or civilly? 

[Frances]

2 hours ago, TechWife said:

I think the fact that she’s admitted to medical school really means nothing - she didn’t have to go through a separate med school application process. Frankly, there aren’t enough slots for capable people to go to med school and it irks me that she will be taking one of them. Is she really that self aware and mature that she’s ready to make a lifelong commitment to extensive training and a career. If she enters med school at 15, graduates at 18 - she is supposed to be able to know what specialty she wants to practice for the rest of her life at 18? I honestly can’t see how she would match to a residency. She would have to have one stellar med school experience. I think most residency programs would see her maturity as a disadvantage for all the reasons people have stated here. At 13 she’s barely out of puberty and into adolescence. I don’t care how smart she is - she has a lot of biological and emotional growing up to do. 

There are still more hoops she needs to jump through before she actually attends medical school. She needs to maintain a certain GPA and take the MCAT, although it appears they only require students in her program to score in the 35 percentile which is substantially below the average (about 85%) for students admitted to medical school in the US.
 

The program does sounds far easier to get into than going through the regular med school application process, especially given that it is targeted at students from only a few colleges. So the statistics about the low % accepted to med school, especially among blacks, quoted in the WA Post article and highlighted in her instagram post don’t really apply in this situation. The program is specifically targeting students at a few HBCUs. She enrolled at one of them specifically to be able to apply early to medical school. It does seem like the program is taking a pretty big risk admitting someone so young and with so little life experience. Given the extreme lack of adequate medical school slots in the US, I agree that there is no need to give one to someone who is so young. 

Edited July 25, 2022 by Frances

[Corraleno]

26 minutes ago, wathe said:

Med school is not a great choice for minors, I don't think.  I don't think any 13yo has the required maturity.  Not many 15yo's either.  NO way in heck I would send my kid to medical school that young no matter how gifted.

Medicine is super gritty.  The human condition, up close and personal, the entire spectrum.  Rotations through teaching hospitals are no picnic. Medicine is death and dying. Patients with end-stage cancer. Horrific social situations.  Addiction.  Assault.  Trauma.  Sexually abused children.  Attempted murder victims.  Pediatric cancer.  Obstetrical disasters.  Patients who are murderers/sex offenders/drunk drivers who've just killed someone . Patents and families who are distraught.  How to give bad new, and then actually doing it.  Nights on call, sleep deprivation, dealing with the hierarchy medical student< intern<resident<senior resident<staff, and the abuse that's baked into the medical education system.  Physical risk of infectious disease, needle-stick injuries, violence from patients.  Tremendous personal responsibility - people will die because of decisions you've made or didn't make.   Doing pelvic exams, rectal exams, other invasive procedures.

All of this.

I saw and experienced all of this in medical school.  We started clinical work in the hospital 1 day per week from the very first day.  By the beginning of 3rd year, all learning was hospital based. 

ETA; this is before residency

And it's not as if she understands all of this and has always had a driving passion to become a doctor — a year ago she was giving interviews about how it was her lifelong dream to be an engineer at NASA, saying she's always been fascinated by space exploration and was always building things and playing with legos as a kid, and "through her whole life" she has always known that she would be an engineer at NASA "no matter what," and planned to build rovers and spaceships. And then at some point between June of last year and a few months ago, she took her first college biology class and immediately decided she was really meant to be a doctor, not a NASA engineer, and used Oakwood University to apply to UAB's Early Assurance program just a few months after having taken her first college bio class. 

[Catwoman]

Personally, I feel sorry for the kid. 

Maybe that’s not a popular opinion, but that kid hasn’t had a normal childhood, and I am not convinced that her parents haven’t pushed her into all of this. Of course she seems happy — for now. She doesn’t know any better. 

I say this as the mom of a kid who could have easily done what this girl is doing, but my dh and I decided that a normal life was far more important than having multiple degrees by the time he was 18. And my opinion is also colored by my own personal childhood experience with my school accelerating me into a 6th grade classroom when I should have been in the first grade. My parents saw that I was miserable (I still remember that I was the only kid whose feet didn’t touch the floor under my desk,) and insisted that I be placed back in the first grade with my same-aged peers, and it was the best decision they could have made. Sure, I was bored with the schoolwork, but I had friends instead of feeling like I was the class pet. 

That 13yo kid isn’t going to have a normal social life, because she will be far too young to attend college parties until years after she has already graduated. And med school? At her age? Were her parents big Doogie Howser fans or something?

I’m sorry if I have offended anyone, but the girl sounds like she’s a bright kid who doesn’t really know what she wants to do with her life yet — and she shouldn’t have to make decisions like that at her age. Why is there such a rush for this child to become a doctor? Why not let her be a regular kid, and let her do things on a less ridiculously accelerated timeline? She only gets to be a child once.

[Catwoman]

1 minute ago, Corraleno said:

And it's not as if she understands all of this and has always had a driving passion to become a doctor — a year ago she was giving interviews about how it was her lifelong dream to be an engineer at NASA, saying she's always been fascinated by space exploration and was always building things and playing with legos as a kid, and "through her whole life" she has always known that she would be an engineer at NASA "no matter what," and planned to build rovers and spaceships. And then at some point between June of last year and a few months ago, she took her first college biology class and immediately decided she was really meant to be a doctor, not a NASA engineer, and used Oakwood University to apply to UAB's Early Assurance program just a few months after having taken her first college bio class. 

Yes, the maturity clearly isn’t there yet — and it shouldn’t be! It’s insane that she is being faced with these major decisions at this age. 

And don’t even get me started on the social ramifications of this. She’s 13 and her classmates are not going to want her as a real friend because she is simply too young. They might be nice to her, but she’s not going to be considered a true peer. And that’s not fair to the poor kid! 

[chocolate-chip chooky]

2 minutes ago, Catwoman said:

Personally, I feel sorry for the kid. 

Maybe that’s not a popular opinion, but that kid hasn’t had a normal childhood, and I am not convinced that her parents haven’t pushed her into all of this. Of course she seems happy — for now. She doesn’t know any better. 

I say this as the mom of a kid who could have easily done what this girl is doing, but my dh and I decided that a normal life was far more important than having multiple degrees by the time he was 18. And my opinion is also colored by my own personal childhood experience with my school accelerating me into a 6th grade classroom when I should have been in the first grade. My parents saw that I was miserable (I still remember that I was the only kid whose feet didn’t touch the floor under my desk,) and insisted that I be placed back in the first grade with my same-aged peers, and it was the best decision they could have made. Sure, I was bored with the schoolwork, but I had friends instead of feeling like I was the class pet. 

That 13yo kid isn’t going to have a normal social life, because she will be far too young to attend college parties until years after she has already graduated. And med school? At her age? Were her parents big Doogie Howser fans or something?

I’m sorry if I have offended anyone, but the girl sounds like she’s a bright kid who doesn’t really know what she wants to do with her life yet — and she shouldn’t have to make decisions like that at her age. Why is there such a rush for this child to become a doctor? Why not let her be a regular kid, and let her do things on a less ridiculously accelerated timeline? She only gets to be a child once.

The thing is, some of these kids aren't 'regular kids'. 'Letting them be regular kids' just doesn't apply.

Whether this applies to this girl or not, who knows? 

 

[chocolate-chip chooky]

1 minute ago, Catwoman said:

Yes, the maturity clearly isn’t there yet — and it shouldn’t be! It’s insane that she is being faced with these major decisions at this age. 

And don’t even get me started on the social ramifications of this. She’s 13 and her classmates are not going to want her as a real friend because she is simply too young. They might be nice to her, but she’s not going to be considered a true peer. And that’s not fair to the poor kid! 

Cat, you're making assumptions.

She may be considerably more mature than an 18 year old. Or maybe not. We don't know.

Her peers might genuinely consider her a peer. Or maybe not. We don't know.

And whether it's fair or not? Not offering out-of-the-box opportunities and experiences can be the thing that isn't fair. 

For this particular girl, we don't know.

[Jean in Newcastle]

5 minutes ago, chocolate-chip chooky said:

The thing is, some of these kids aren't 'regular kids'. 'Letting them be regular kids' just doesn't apply.

Whether this applies to this girl or not, who knows? 

 

The girl herself is quoted as saying that she’s allowed to be a 13 year old girl. She loves to play soccer, go to arcades and has friends her age. I am inclined to actually take people at their word unless there is proof that I shouldn’t do that. I agree with you that the negative opinions puzzle me. (I also don’t agree with putting her on a pedestal, which is the other reaction I see - not here but especially in comments on the articles about her. ). 

[wathe]

Rotated through  chief coroner's office to observe autopsies, and exposure to forensics including violent sexual assault cases; inner city schools, homeless shelters, AIDS hospice, nursing homes, inner city homecare visits, sexual assault program, women's shelter all in the first year.   No thanksgiving for me in 3rd year, I was on call in-house in the hospital for psychiatry rotation: mental illness with profound social dysfunction, bed bugs, being told by a patient with severe psychosis that my c^nt smelled fresh and being sniffed.  Being swung at by intoxicated patient.  Being pinched by patient with dementia.  Being yelled at for dropping a retractor in the OR at 0600h after being awake and on duty for 24h.   Witnessed needle stick injury of colleague by another colleague during open cardiac massage on stabbing victim.  Breaking the news to a mother whose teenage son had just died of sudden cardiac death, because I was the only one handy who could speak french.   This is medical school.

Medical school is for adults.

Edited July 25, 2022 by wathe

[Drama Llama]

I don't know that applying for guaranteed entry means that she'll go.  It might just be keeping a door open.  Medical school can be really hard to get into, so if she's got an opportunity to guarantee that slot, then applying and keeping the offer in her back pocket might make sense.  Maybe she'll go at 15.  Maybe there's a gap year provision.  Maybe she can negotiate a couple gap years and get a master's degree.

However, I do think that you can recognize that some kids need out of the box experiences (my middle kid would be in this category) and also feel that a minimum age makes sense for this particular experience.  

There are lots of people who take paths to medical school that involve taking time off to work in a related field, or getting a master's or PhD first, or spending a year in another country gaining linguistic fluency that they can use during their career.  Even if this kid lives in an area where there aren't other academic options that would challenge her besides enrolling in college at 12, there are ways to give her more time to make a major decision, and start medical schools.  Perhaps she'll take one of those. 

 

[wathe]

50 minutes ago, TechWife said:

Could a minor  legally agree to abide by confidentiality laws in regard to patients and in regard to proprietary hospital information? Could they be held liable, either criminally or civilly? 

Right.   I have no idea.   Or write orders for drugs.  Med student orders get co-signed, but not always (or even often, when I trained) in real time.  I wonder if she would be accommodated for age, and get "med school lite" type experience.

Edited July 25, 2022 by wathe

[EKS]

38 minutes ago, Frances said:

She needs to maintain a certain GPA and take the MCAT, although it appears they only require students in her program to score in the 35 percentile which is substantially below the average (about 85%) for students admitted to medical school.

Well that's disturbing.

[EKS]

24 minutes ago, Catwoman said:

And don’t even get me started on the social ramifications of this. She’s 13 and her classmates are not going to want her as a real friend because she is simply too young. They might be nice to her, but she’s not going to be considered a true peer. And that’s not fair to the poor kid! 

As the parent of a kid who was in this (well not exactly this!) situation, I wholeheartedly agree!  Though I do think that girls are more able to pass than boys in this regard.  That said, since it's been publicized, she won't be able to fly under the radar.

[Corraleno]

2 hours ago, PaxEtLux said:

 

You know, despite what the article said, I don't think she's actually doing two full four year undergraduate programs concurrently for the same degree at two institutions.  Why would anyone do this? Who in advising would recommend this? Presumably, the classes from the two schools don't count for the other, so you'd need to take many of the exact same class twice, and all the general ed classes once for each school  I think she's primarily at one school, and has taken a few classes online at the other.

She says she'll earn separate degrees from each institution in spring 2024. She has to graduate from Oakwood in order to access the Early Assurance program, but she has a full tuition scholarship at ASU. It would make more sense to take as many free classes at ASU as she can transfer to Oakwood, and then graduate from Oakwood if she still plans on med school. But maybe a year from now she'll decide that she doesn't want to be a doctor after all, and she'll drop Oakwood and go back to engineering at ASU. Or maybe, like most 13 yr olds, some new thing will catch her interest and she'll be giving interviews about how she's always wanted to be Supreme Court justice and plans to enter ASU law school at 15.

[EKS]

2 minutes ago, Corraleno said:

She has to graduate from Oakwood in order to access the Early Assurance program, but she has a full tuition scholarship at ASU.

Ah. Things are starting to make more sense.

Has anyone looked at the Oakwood website?  Honestly, it is the worst college website I've ever seen, and that's saying something.

[TechWife]

10 minutes ago, chocolate-chip chooky said:

Cat, you're making assumptions.

She may be considerably more mature than an 18 year old. Or maybe not. We don't know.

Her peers might genuinely consider her a peer. Or maybe not. We don't know.

And whether it's fair or not? Not offering out-of-the-box opportunities and experiences can be the thing that isn't fair. 

For this particular girl, we don't know.

The state has already decided she’s not mature enough to drive, no matter how smart she is or how capable she is. I can’t believe having a 15 yo med student is less risky than having a 15 yo driver. 

She may be intellectually brilliant and who knows, she may be socially precocious as well. None of the quotes in either article support the second idea, though, realizing there is limited information to go on.  In any case, I don’t think it matters how socially precocious she is, her brain is still 13 years old. If she enters medical school at 15, her brain will still only be 15 years old. In medical school, she will have traumatic experiences - things that are traumatic for the typical medical school student will be processed by her 15 year old brain. It might sound like an intellectual challenge, and I’m sure it is, but the emotional experience of being in a hospital regularly cannot be overlooked. The first time she helps a nurse make hand molds of the teen who died from car  accident injuries before the parents make it to the hospital, the first time a patient she likes turns out to be a criminal, the first time a patient lashes out at her, verbally or physically- it  goes on and on. Most patients probably fall within the scope of what is typical of a patient in their particular situation. The ones that aren’t, though, those are the ones that will be remembered for the rest of her career.  A fifteen year old brain.

[TechWife]

17 minutes ago, Jean in Newcastle said:

The girl herself is quoted as saying that she’s allowed to be a 13 year old girl. She loves to play soccer, go to arcades and has friends her age. I am inclined to actually take people at their word unless there is proof that I shouldn’t do that. I agree with you that the negative opinions puzzle me. (I also don’t agree with putting her on a pedestal, which is the other reaction I see - not here but especially in comments on the articles about her. ). 

Except med school students don’t have time to do any of that.

[Lecka]

I think she came across very well in the Washington Post article.

I think mentors from “2nd tier state schools” are highly qualified to be mentors.  It’s so competitive to get a job in academia.  

[Jean in Newcastle]

12 minutes ago, TechWife said:

Except med school students don’t have time to do any of that.

Yes, and by the time that comes around in a couple of years she may or may not continue with this trajectory. I can see why a young lady who has started an organization that promotes STEM for “brown girls “ (her words) would want to advertise her interests and her acceptance to different programs. It brings more eyes to her cause. I can also see how in some cases, having publicized her acceptance and intentions to go to medical school would make it more difficult to “save face” if in the future she decides that she wants a different or possibly less stressful degree or career. But maybe she doesn’t really care what people think. 

[Lecka]

That is a good point about having a platform to publicize her charity, I hadn’t thought of it that way.  
 

I like it.  

[Corraleno]

51 minutes ago, chocolate-chip chooky said:

And whether it's fair or not? Not offering out-of-the-box opportunities and experiences can be the thing that isn't fair. 

No one is suggesting that a gifted kid should be deprived of out-of-the-box opportunities — exactly the opposite. What bothers me about this story is that she hasn't been given out of box opportunities — she's been put in a very ordinary, not very interesting box, she just jumped into it sooner than most kids do. Taking online classes that are not any more advanced than a typical HS class, and are actually less engaging, where she watches prerecorded lectures, takes weekly 20-item multiple choice quizzes, and posts a 200-word response to a weekly discussion prompt, which will receive full marks for participation but no feedback from professors, where if she has any questions or wants more information she can post it on the website and hope that one of the many overworked TA's eventually sees it and responds, is not a deep, challenging academic experience for a gifted kid. If she's really gifted, she's getting short changed. And if she's just a bright hardworking kid who has been misled to believe that taking ASU Online classes at 13 means she's a genius who will cruise through med school, then she's being equally short changed.

[Lecka]

The Washington Post article said her mom designed a high school level curriculum for her.  
 

She has got mentors.
 

I don’t think it sounds like the extent of what she is doing is a potentially low-quality level of class work.

 

She has a mentor at a college, a mentor at NASA, maybe the coursework is just taking up a little of her time.  

[Tree Frog]

1 hour ago, TechWife said:

This is a gifted link to the WaPo article. It has more detail on her education to date.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2022/07/20/alena-analeigh-wicker-college-stem/

It's still behind a paywall for me.

[Ausmumof3]

I think this could be a useful approach for kids that wanted to do further stuff after finishing basic medicine, to specialise though I guess even then there’s a significant practical component. 

[Corraleno]

1 hour ago, Baseballandhockey said:

I don't know that applying for guaranteed entry means that she'll go.  It might just be keeping a door open.  Medical school can be really hard to get into, so if she's got an opportunity to guarantee that slot, then applying and keeping the offer in her back pocket might make sense.  Maybe she'll go at 15.  Maybe there's a gap year provision.  Maybe she can negotiate a couple gap years and get a master's degree.

The Early Assurance program may not be legally binding, but one of the requirements for acceptance is that you commit to attend their medical school after college graduation. They provide a lot of support and coaching, including summer programs and prep for the MCAT, to the students who are accepted into the program, they don't just send a letter saying "here's your acceptance to med school, let us know if you still want to come in a couple of years." They are investing time, money, and energy in students who promise to attend in return for the early admission slot. 

Edited July 25, 2022 by Corraleno

[chocolate-chip chooky]

For clarification, I'm not advocating for 13 year olds to study medicine. 

I'm advocating for open-mindedness about this girl and her circumstances, and also extrapolating this to other accelerated students and their circumstances.

I'm advocating for not making assumptions. 

 

 

[Catwoman]

1 hour ago, chocolate-chip chooky said:

Cat, you're making assumptions.

She may be considerably more mature than an 18 year old. Or maybe not. We don't know.

Her peers might genuinely consider her a peer. Or maybe not. We don't know.

And whether it's fair or not? Not offering out-of-the-box opportunities and experiences can be the thing that isn't fair. 

For this particular girl, we don't know.

But she isn’t considerably more emotionally mature than an 18yo. She just isn’t. Because she is 13. And as @TechWife already pointed out, she has a 13yo brain. And she has the emotions and hormonal changes of a 13yo. She might be very bright, and she certainly seems to have a lot of self-confidence, but she also proves her immaturity by stressing in multiple interviews that age doesn’t matter. She has been sold a bill of goods that says she’s an adult in a 13yo body, and just because she is well-spoken and bright, that isn’t enough to make her an adult. She’s a child who is going through puberty, not an adult. 

Her peers don’t genuinely consider her to be a peer because she is 13 years old. She has almost nothing in common with them from a social standpoint. The only common ground she has with them involves academics. She is the same age as a middle schooler — she shouldn’t be one of their peers. Emotionally, she is nowhere near ready for that. She is a child.

And honestly, I have some serious questions about her mother’s intentions because she is allowing her child to be exploited by the media. Just think of the added pressure being placed on this child to succeed. Ugh! 

[Katy]

45 minutes ago, Corraleno said:

No one is suggesting that a gifted kid should be deprived of out-of-the-box opportunities — exactly the opposite. What bothers me about this story is that she hasn't been given out of box opportunities — she's been put in a very ordinary, not very interesting box, she just jumped into it sooner than most kids do. Taking online classes that are not any more advanced than a typical HS class, and are actually less engaging, where she watches prerecorded lectures, takes weekly 20-item multiple choice quizzes, and posts a 200-word response to a weekly discussion prompt, which will receive full marks for participation but no feedback from professors, where if she has any questions or wants more information she can post it on the website and hope that one of the many overworked TA's eventually sees it and responds, is not a deep, challenging academic experience for a gifted kid. If she's really gifted, she's getting short changed. And if she's just a bright hardworking kid who has been misled to believe that taking ASU Online classes at 13 means she's a genius who will cruise through med school, then she's being equally short changed.

Ehhhhh, I just don't think most undergraduate classes are that challenging, ever, except the ones designed to confuse you or to be weed-out classes. And half or more of the frustrations with that are the lack of clear expectations.  I was labeled a gifted kid and I took Anatomy & Physiology in the way you describe online classes.  I LOVED it. I found it more engaging because I could focus on learning the material and less on classroom politics. There was no BS like there is in every in-person class.  The expectations were very clear.  It was very clear who was engaged in the class and who was doing the work. I was in complete control of my grade, and I had more control in terms of timing. I loved the ability to look at all of those scans in every direction and magnification too. You can't do that when dissecting a real cadaver.  It lacked the sort of intellectual rigor sitting around with other gifted students on campus arguing about things did, but in terms of checking off the boxes for nursing school it was wonderful and if I'd been able to take all my classes that way I probably would have gone to medical school too.

Lets face it, unless you're in something fluffy like political science or sociology, no one cares about the opinions of an undergraduate kid. Even philosophy and ethics courses are less about personal opinions and more about demonstrating that you read and memorized the pertinent material.  Learn the material, check the boxes, do well on the exams.  While I haven't been to med school I've watched a lot of med students while working in a hospital and I'm under the impression it's very similar but at a fire hose pace.

[Lecka]

I think it’s okay for a 13yo to be the subject of a newspaper article.  
 

If it were a 13yo who won a contest, played a solo in a concert, went to a sports invitational, etc, I would think all those things were okay.  
 

Edit:  I have read about an elementary school aged boy in New York who is really good at chess.  I haven’t thought he seemed like he was being exploited.

 

But I didn’t think the kids on “John and Kate Plus 8” were being exploited before it seemed like they were being exploited, so…. But this article is a lot less than a tv show with cameras inside the home.  But I didn’t see it coming.  

Edited July 25, 2022 by Lecka

[Catwoman]

1 hour ago, Corraleno said:

No one is suggesting that a gifted kid should be deprived of out-of-the-box opportunities — exactly the opposite. What bothers me about this story is that she hasn't been given out of box opportunities — she's been put in a very ordinary, not very interesting box, she just jumped into it sooner than most kids do. Taking online classes that are not any more advanced than a typical HS class, and are actually less engaging, where she watches prerecorded lectures, takes weekly 20-item multiple choice quizzes, and posts a 200-word response to a weekly discussion prompt, which will receive full marks for participation but no feedback from professors, where if she has any questions or wants more information she can post it on the website and hope that one of the many overworked TA's eventually sees it and responds, is not a deep, challenging academic experience for a gifted kid. If she's really gifted, she's getting short changed. And if she's just a bright hardworking kid who has been misled to believe that taking ASU Online classes at 13 means she's a genius who will cruise through med school, then she's being equally short changed.

I agree! 

This poor kid has been convinced that she is a genius who is basically an adult in a 13yo body (because she says age doesn’t matter,) yet she isn’t really doing anything all that spectacular in terms of the schools she attends or the coursework she is doing. And it really bothers me that her mom keeps allowing her to be interviewed by the media — and she is being very heavily promoted as a shining example of what young black girls can achieve, which sounds nice on the surface, but in actuality, it places an insane amount of pressure on this girl to be a huge success at everything she does. 

And photographing the kid in a white doctor’s coat? Seriously? 😒 

Edited July 25, 2022 by Catwoman

[Catwoman]

2 minutes ago, Lecka said:

I think it’s okay for a 13yo to be the subject of a newspaper article.  
 

If it were a 13yo who won a contest, played a solo in a concert, went to a sports invitational, etc, I would think all those things were okay.  

But it’s not “a” newspaper article. This kid is being promoted all over the place. Do a quick Google search and you’ll see what I mean.

[Lecka]

I did do a Google search…… whoa.  It’s a lot.

 

I was thinking of someone my age who co-authored a childrens book and it was published, and the family kept a newspaper article on their refrigerator…..

 

She was fine, but without the Internet it would probably be a lot easier to keep it from being too defining.  

[Catwoman]

1 hour ago, TechWife said:

The state has already decided she’s not mature enough to drive, no matter how smart she is or how capable she is. I can’t believe having a 15 yo med student is less risky than having a 15 yo driver. 

She may be intellectually brilliant and who knows, she may be socially precocious as well. None of the quotes in either article support the second idea, though, realizing there is limited information to go on.  In any case, I don’t think it matters how socially precocious she is, her brain is still 13 years old. If she enters medical school at 15, her brain will still only be 15 years old. In medical school, she will have traumatic experiences - things that are traumatic for the typical medical school student will be processed by her 15 year old brain. It might sound like an intellectual challenge, and I’m sure it is, but the emotional experience of being in a hospital regularly cannot be overlooked. The first time she helps a nurse make hand molds of the teen who died from car  accident injuries before the parents make it to the hospital, the first time a patient she likes turns out to be a criminal, the first time a patient lashes out at her, verbally or physically- it  goes on and on. Most patients probably fall within the scope of what is typical of a patient in their particular situation. The ones that aren’t, though, those are the ones that will be remembered for the rest of her career.  A fifteen year old brain.

Yes! All of this! 

I’m glad the girl is smart, hardworking, and ambitious. But emotionally, she’s still just a child, no matter how much she brags about how she is so hardworking and has such great time management skills. 

And why is there such a big rush for her to become a doctor? Why is it so important for her to be “the youngest” this and “the youngest” that?

Is this because she is actually incredibly serious about becoming a doctor? Or is it more about bragging rights? 

Is all of this really her own idea, or has she been pushed by a very ambitious parent? We may never know. 

[Catwoman]

2 minutes ago, Lecka said:

I did do a Google search…… whoa.  It’s a lot.

 

I was thinking of someone my age who co-authored a childrens book and it was published, and the family kept a newspaper article on their refrigerator…..

 

She was fine, but without the Internet it would probably be a lot easier to keep it from being too defining.  

Yes, that was the part that I found so disturbing, as well. It’s not just her local paper doing a story on her because she is young and in college. It’s EVERYWHERE, and it’s not just that she did one interview and other outlets picked it up; these are many separate interviews with different photos. I feel like she is being exploited, and even if it’s unintentional, I don’t think it’s psychologically healthy for her.

[Corraleno]

1 minute ago, Katy said:

Ehhhhh, I just don't think most undergraduate classes are that challenging, ever, except the ones designed to confuse you or to be weed-out classes. And half or more of the frustrations with that are the lack of clear expectations.  I was labeled a gifted kid and I took Anatomy & Physiology in the way you describe online classes.  I LOVED it. I found it more engaging because I could focus on learning the material and less on classroom politics. There was no BS like there is in every in-person class.  The expectations were very clear.  It was very clear who was engaged in the class and who was doing the work. I was in complete control of my grade, and I had more control in terms of timing. I loved the ability to look at all of those scans in every direction and magnification too. You can't do that when dissecting a real cadaver.  It lacked the sort of intellectual rigor sitting around with other gifted students on campus arguing about things did, but in terms of checking off the boxes for nursing school it was wonderful and if I'd been able to take all my classes that way I probably would have gone to medical school too.

Lets face it, unless you're in something fluffy like political science or sociology, no one cares about the opinions of an undergraduate kid. Even philosophy and ethics courses are less about personal opinions and more about demonstrating that you read and memorized the pertinent material.  Learn the material, check the boxes, do well on the exams.  While I haven't been to med school I've watched a lot of med students while working in a hospital and I'm under the impression it's very similar but at a fire hose pace.

I did my undergrad at a LAC, and my experience was the polar opposite of the ASU Online classes. Having my opinions and ideas welcomed and respected and seriously debated, by real scholars with publications and PhDs, was what made me decide to pursue a PhD myself. My original motivation to go away to college was really just to get the hell away from my toxic family, and since I was offered a full ride, it would have been stupid not to jump at a free chance to get out of Dodge. But I assumed most classes would be about as boring as HS classes, just with better weather and no parental oversight.  Instead I was blown away that education could be such a totally different experience, and after kind of slacking off my freshman year, I decided to get my shit together and get serious about getting into grad school. If my total college experience had consisted of watching prerecorded lectures and taking multiple choice quizzes, I probably would have dropped out within a year. And even though DS is at a huge state university, other than a few very basic GenEd type classes, his experience has also not been anything like the ASU classes he breezed through in HS. DD's very low level intro classes at the CC are more comparable, although she gets a lot more feedback from the CC instructors.

[Corraleno]

12 minutes ago, Catwoman said:

Yes, that was the part that I found so disturbing, as well. It’s not just her local paper doing a story on her because she is young and in college. It’s EVERYWHERE, and it’s not just that she did one interview and other outlets picked it up; these are many separate interviews with different photos. I feel like she is being exploited, and even if it’s unintentional, I don’t think it’s psychologically healthy for her.

And a year ago there were news stories about the "12 year old genius who's studying mechanical engineering at ASU and will be working for NASA." She and her mother were actively pushing the "youngest intern ever at NASA" story and now they're pushing the "youngest Black student ever accepted to med school" story, as if being the "youngest" at something is the goal itself, not just a coincidental thing on the way to the actual goal. That's the part that bothers me, that they seem to be purposely rushing her through low level coursework in order to claim the "prize" of "youngest ever to do X," instead of focusing on being the best educated and best prepared person for career X, instead of just the youngest. 

[Catwoman]

1 minute ago, Corraleno said:

And a year ago there were news stories about the "12 year old genius who's studying mechanical engineering at ASU and will be working for NASA." She and her mother were actively pushing the "youngest intern ever at NASA" story and now they're pushing the "youngest Black student ever accepted to med school" story, as if being the "youngest" at something is the goal itself, not just a coincidental thing on the way to the actual goal. That's the part that bothers me, that they seem to be purposely rushing her through low level coursework in order to claim the "prize" of "youngest ever to do X," instead of focusing on being the best educated and best prepared person for career X, instead of just the youngest. 

Yes, I agree! I saw those news stories, as well — I looked for them after you mentioned them — and my takeaway was the same as yours: this is all about making this kid famous for being “the youngest” whatever.

I don’t think it has all that much to do with the child actually wanting to be a successful engineer or a successful doctor; in fact, I wouldn’t entirely discount the possibility that this might be more about the mom wanting the kid to get her own reality show or to become a celebrity of some sort, and having her be “the youngest” to achieve things is nothing more than the vehicle they are using to achieve that fame.

It certainly isn’t about high level academics, or the kid would be attending far more prestigious schools. 

[Dmmetler]

4 hours ago, TechWife said:

Could a minor  legally agree to abide by confidentiality laws in regard to patients and in regard to proprietary hospital information? Could they be held liable, either criminally or civilly? 

L was unable to do the honors psychology classes at the local CC because they involved doing tours at facilities, and since L was underage, couldn't sign the required paperwork. Age matters in education programs, foo. Even things like being a counselor at the community center day camp, which requires a high school diploma isn't an option until age 18. One reason why we slow walked the local CC until age 16, and now are slow walking undergrad (all told, L will spend 8 years of college coursework before getting a BS in anythIng, with the first year being a mix of high level classes wherever we could find them and collefe classes, mostly through the honors college locally, the last four being a mix up upper division undergrad work and graduate work at a much more competitive school )-because the herp world tends to have a lot of conversation and networking over drinks, and being too young to go into a bar would really be restrictive-not drinking is no big deal, but starting grad school before 18 would have been extremely difficult just for that reason alone.

 

I will also say-when we first started going to HBCU foundation events, L was about 12-13, and HBCU's were a LOT more willing to both open doors and just plain seemed to understand "well, I kind of ran out of classes that were a good fit, so I started taking college classes", instead of immediately jumping to "well, why don't you just do AP?" I think schools and programs which are focused on compensating for a biased and discriminatory system seem more likely NOT to automatically have policies that discriminate based on age, and recognize that the least bad option for a given student is not the same as the best possible in an ideal world. So maybe that's one reason why this particular program, which is focused primarily on a path from HBCUs to Med School recognized this student's talent and potential, instead of focusing on her birthdate.

 

As far as why early college vs AoPS or Lukeion, for mine it was a) already having done much of the high level online coursework available and b) needing other people, in person, to learn with. Online, no matter how good, wasn't enough anymore and occasional homeschool meetups weren't, either. We considered a lot of options, very much including moving for the right school, and ultimately the local, decidedly non-competitive college where my kid's age 10 SAT and age 11 ACT and 7th grade transcript blew the lid off their average. But it taught a LOT of executive functioning and classroom skills, and when my kid got to college at a school with a lot of kids who came out of high level private and public magnet schools, it quickly became obvious that those local CC classes everyone sneered at did a better job of teaching how to college than almost any high school did. There are 18 yr olds with a 4.0+ in high school and 1400+ SAT who struggle with "how to college". 

I have real problems with the knee jerk reaction being "she's just accelerated with good EF skills, not gifted". Because, NO not every middle schooler can do this. Not even every good high school graduate can do it. And as long as she isn't taking out loans, she has nothing but time if she changes her mind down the road. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Corraleno]

35 minutes ago, Catwoman said:

Yes, I agree! I saw those news stories, as well — I looked for them after you mentioned them — and my takeaway was the same as yours: this is all about making this kid famous for being “the youngest” whatever.

I don’t think it has all that much to do with the child actually wanting to be a successful engineer or a successful doctor; in fact, I wouldn’t entirely discount the possibility that this might be more about the mom wanting the kid to get her own reality show or to become a celebrity of some sort, and having her be “the youngest” to achieve things is nothing more than the vehicle they are using to achieve that fame.

It certainly isn’t about high level academics, or the kid would be attending far more prestigious schools. 

You hit the nail on the head about the publicity/celebrity goals. Apparently this whole thing has been orchestrated by a "personal branding expert" that her mother hired a decade ago — so when Alena was 3??? That explains all the TV and magazine stories with professional headshots of the kid in a white coat, the super slick professional website for the charity that Alena allegedly "founded" by herself at 10 or 11, the free publicity trip to Lego in Denmark, and all the weird "awards" like Top 20 Kids in Time magazine, Finalist in Nickelodeon Kid of the Year, Global Child Prodigy of 2022 (that one appears to be a pay-to-play award where they tell you you've been specially chosen and offer to list you in their prestigious publication for a fee). She won her first award at the age of 6 for setting up a community program for hungry children. <eye roll>

Her mother, who seems to be some sort of life coach/motivational speaker and who says she spends her time flying around the world with Alena as part of their charity work (paid for by donations), posted on FB thanking Alena's "brand" manager for making it all possible: "She isn't some overnight success story that just happened. She was six years old when she won the prestigious Loudoun 40 Under 40 Award ... This has been years of hard work, Thank you Cheryl Pullins, Personal Branding Expert, for riding this out with us, it's been over a decade of hard work, and you have been there through all of it and helped Lena create this Brand that the world now sees."

This mother hired a "personal branding expert" for a freaking three year old. 

[Catwoman]

1 minute ago, Corraleno said:

You hit the nail on the head about the publicity/celebrity goals. Apparently this whole thing has been orchestrated by a "personal branding expert" that her mother hired a decade ago — so when Alena was 3??? That explains all the TV and magazine stories with professional headshots of the kid in a white coat, the super slick professional website for the charity that Alena allegedly "founded" by herself at 10 or 11, the free publicity trip to Lego in Denmark, and all the weird "awards" like Top 20 Kids in Time magazine, Finalist in Nickelodeon Kid of the Year, Global Child Prodigy of 2022 (that one appears to be a pay-to-play award where they tell you you've been specially chosen and offer to list you in their prestigious publication for a fee). She won her first award at the age of 6 for setting up a community program for hungry children. <eye roll>

Her mother, who seems to be some sort of life coach/motivational speaker and who says she spends her time flying around the world with Alena as part of their charity work (paid for by donations), posted on FB thanking Alena's "brand" manager for making it all possible: "She isn't some overnight success story that just happened. She was six years old when she won the prestigious Loudoun 40 Under 40 Award ... This has been years of hard work, Thank you Cheryl Pullins, Personal Branding Expert, for riding this out with us, it's been over a decade of hard work, and you have been there through all of it and helped Lena create this Brand that the world now sees."

This mother hired a "personal branding expert" for a freaking three year old. 

Wow!!! So apparently the mom was the one with the goals and aspirations, and the kid has been raised in that atmosphere for so long that it is the only reality she has ever known. I can only imagine what will happen a few years from now if all of the mom’s scheming and planning falls flat and the girl ends up not being a massively successful international celebrity. The poor kid is going to feel like such a failure.

What a tragedy for that poor child. She has certainly had no say in any of this, and it sounds like her mom planned for her to be famous (for anything and everything humanly possible — who cares, as long as she’s famous, right???) since she was a toddler. That is horrible!!!

Something seemed very wrong as soon as I opened this thread and read the original article, but the story keep getting worse. 

The mother is sickening!!!

[chocolate-chip chooky]

2 hours ago, Catwoman said:

But she isn’t considerably more emotionally mature than an 18yo. She just isn’t. Because she is 13. And as @TechWife already pointed out, she has a 13yo brain. And she has the emotions and hormonal changes of a 13yo. She might be very bright, and she certainly seems to have a lot of self-confidence, but she also proves her immaturity by stressing in multiple interviews that age doesn’t matter. She has been sold a bill of goods that says she’s an adult in a 13yo body, and just because she is well-spoken and bright, that isn’t enough to make her an adult. She’s a child who is going through puberty, not an adult. 

Her peers don’t genuinely consider her to be a peer because she is 13 years old. She has almost nothing in common with them from a social standpoint. The only common ground she has with them involves academics. She is the same age as a middle schooler — she shouldn’t be one of their peers. Emotionally, she is nowhere near ready for that. She is a child.

 

While this is all probably true for 99.95% of 13 year olds, there are outliers that actually exist. 

And these children can connect socially with much older people. In fact, that can be the only people they can connect with. And when these connections are genuine, those older people either don't notice or don't care about the age difference.

Whether this particular girl is one of these people, I wouldn't have a clue.

I'm just trying to help you think beyond your very strong statements.

[Drama Llama]

2 minutes ago, chocolate-chip chooky said:

While this is all probably true for 99.95% of 13 year olds, there are outliers that actually exist. 

And these children can connect socially with much older people. In fact, that can be the only people they can connect with. And when these connections are genuine, those older people either don't notice or don't care about the age difference.

Whether this particular girl is one of these people, I wouldn't have a clue.

I'm just trying to help you think beyond your very strong statements.

If she's unable to connect to a variety of people, of different ages and experiences, she has no future as a doctor. That's a huge limitation.  

 

[vonfirmath]

14 hours ago, bolt. said:

I've always been surprised that US post-secondary schools admit children. For the longest time I thought it was a myth, like a storytelling device used in fiction, a 'superpower'. (Like Sheldon on 'Big Bang Theory' -- I thought the idea of his young attendance at university was preposterous: part of the joke.)

Now I know that, yes, it happens on a case-by-case basis even in Canada and other countries. But it still seems so strange. I know that a gifted/talented young teen could do course work successfully, probably with a support system. But it doesn't mean they are ready to enter the adult world.

It seems like there might be a better way to occupy-and-develop the minds of these unique individuals without just pushing them 'forward' into the next stage of life and the environments suitable for that stage of life.

Maybe the problem is more that we delay so many kids entering the adult world so they don't grow up? Throughout at least some parts of history, kids were treated as adults and expected to take on adult responsibilities at younger ages than we now expect.

 

[vonfirmath]

13 hours ago, City Mouse said:

I think about this from the perspective of a patient. I don’t care how smart the child is, there is no way I would want a teen age medical student completing a gyn exam on me among other things. I think the patient interaction is going to be a bigger obstacle than simply learning the material.

I was just at a camp for a week with girls from ages 5 to 18. And I'd be perfectly happy letting some of them perform medical exams on me, and totally NOT want others. But several of our oldest girls were definitely mature enough to be appropriate.