"While his kindergarten classmates were learning to tie their shoelaces, Jacob Bradd was solving algebra problems. By third grade he was working his way through a university calculus textbook. And at 13, he blitzed HSC extension maths after only knuckling down to study a week from the exams.
It was this astonishing progression that propelled him to university this year, where he began full-time study at 14, the youngest student on campus at Wollongong and among the youngest nationwide.
For his parents, it was difficult to decide what to do with a child too*intelligent for high school but too young for adult life.
"Our main reservations were related to his social life," his father,*hydrogeologist Dr John Bradd, said. "So we actively make sure he keeps up with his friends from school on weekends and when he's not at uni."
Transitioning to university at a young age is increasingly being used in Australia to*meet the needs of highly intelligent students, according to a paper by academics from the University of NSW to be published in the January 2015 issue of*Roeper Review.
One of the co-authors,*Jae Yup Jared Jung, has been researching the career decisions of gifted students and says very few regret being accelerated.
