> Only the University of Maryland and Johns Hopkins University were willing to welcome her straight into a doctoral program. She’ll start at Maryland in the fall. When she finishes, it will be her first degree.

Jeez... what a damning indictment of today's Universities.

She could just use her publication as a dissertation and be done with it!

I see your point, but undergraduate degrees should provide a wide foundation, with little specialization. As you progress to a masters degree, you become more specialized. A doctorate is as specialized as it gets.

It is entirely possible for people to intensely focus on a very, very narrow thing - and ignore everything else. Even to such a degree that they can write a doctorate on it.

But I don't think that's a good excuse to make them forego other curriculum, especially if it is required for other students to take. Schools have a responsibility to educate people to a certain standard, and give them some general breadth.

In my teens I worked with the statistics department at UTMB. That had a cast of characters there; many profs in the 70s and 80s, who'd gotten their degrees before WW2. A number of them had schooling of the form: Start school at 9-10, do 5 years of public school, got to a 1 year prep, do a year or two of college, do a two year PhD. Most of them had their PhD's by 22.

I think the biggest flaw with higher education today is that we're pushing people into doing undergraduate degrees who are already well beyond coming out of self learning from high school or other experiences.

> Jeez... what a damning indictment of today's Universities.

There’s a modern phenomenon I’ve been thinking about but have struggled to put a name to.

Everything just becomes so generalized, streamlined that it becomes impossible to operate outside of the pre defined “happy path”.

AI will make this increase 100x as taking humans out of the loop seems to accelerate this process.

The interesting part is that two others admitted her but retracted after "higher-ups in those universities’ administrations overrode those decisions".

Was she not considered properly conditioned?

> Jeez... what a damning indictment of today's Universities.

> She could just use her publication as a dissertation and be done with it.

I’m not suggesting this person is doing anything fraudulent as she seems quite impressive.

However, educational institutions get constant requests from parents who want their children to skip far ahead before they’re ready. It’s a competitive world and they know that being able to claim a child skipped several grades or even skipped undergrad entirely is a unique and very impressive achievement for the resume. It also theoretically provides a few additional years of earning potential by giving a career head start.

The first problem is that many of these parents (again, no accusations for this specific case) see this and want to make it happen for their child at any cost. There are some wild stories about parents trying to cheat their kids forward or falsifying their accomplishments to try to skip grades.

The secondary problem is that it can be hard on kids to be thrust forward so far past their peers. I had several friends who skipped a grade in middle school and most of them didn’t have a great experience for social reasons. Skipping undergrad altogether would thrust someone into a foreign world with a lot of baseline expectations and norms that they hadn’t yet learned, combined with no peers their age to discuss it with.

It creates a high chance for burnout or failure, which could leave them worse off than when they started.

That’s why the recommendation is generally to do undergrad at a challenging institution that allows students some upward mobility in specific areas where they’re ahead. No reasonable undergrad program is going to have this person taking Algebra 101, but there are a lot of opportunities for them to jump right into advanced programs and go deep and broad.

Hey, you are not getting your degree without paying for it.

> She could just use her publication as a dissertation and be done with it!

The purpose of a PhD is not writing a dissertation. It is a research school, and I'm sure she could still learn a thing or two about research (and teaching).

Two out of ten is pretty good for anything involving individual decisions, just ask any salesperson.

Conversely: if that's all it takes, there is no point in going to University just to get a piece of paper that says "you did the thing you already did".

University (for folks serious about continuing in academia after) is (obviously) about making sure you have the same base knowledge as everyone else, but also for you to come to terms with how academia actually works, who the bad players are, who the good players are, and who you need to know to get shit to happen for you. So in that sense, most Universities going "no" is literally the most accurate reflection of what life's going to be like on a continuous basis on the inside.

I don't see why it would matter. she could quit math now and still be ahead of the majority of mathematician in terms of contributions. The rest is just formalities. I can see her breezing through the undergrad, quals, etc . It would just be a small delay.

Normally you have a master of science as well. And for that you require a bachelors. So to do it directly you need to do it all at once?

There is a story about when Stephen Wolfram applied for a job at AT&T. The HR person asked him where had gone to college. Wolfram confessed that he had never gone to college. Well ok, did you graduate high school? Um no, I'm afraid not. GED? Nope. What about primary school? Wolfram looks more and more more embarrassed, and admits that he didn't even finish primary school. HR person by now is quite uncomfortable when Wolfram manages to think of something. He says "I do happen to have a Ph.D. Does that help?"

That's a nice quip, but aren't degrees meant to offer breadth of knowledge? (I'm sure she has lots, but perhaps is weak in other areas.)

This is ignoring the value of the whole education process, that you go through the years at a university.

I disagree that she should skip the general education.

> what a damning indictment of today's Universities.

Prodigy skips undergrad -> Universities are doomed? What?

50% of my college education was general education though.

And frankly I find it just as valuable.