Child Prodigies Find a Challenging – Yet Welcoming – Environment at Rutgers By Mary Jo Patterson

By last summer, Ross Brown was ready for college-level work. That was clear.

But was college ready for him? He was only 10, more than a hair under 5 feet tall, and technically a sixth-grader.

“Would you like to take a course at Rutgers?” asked his mother, Michelle Brown.

The answer was “Yes.” Ross took “Introduction to Logic,” a 3-credit course, at the New Brunswick campus and enjoyed the experience. (He also got an A.)

“I started reading a logic book once, but I had never done symbolic logic before,” he said.  “It wasn’t very difficult. The teacher was actually very nice, and the students were fairly friendly.”

Ross, who is considered to be profoundly gifted, was Rutgers’ youngest student at the time. Yet 53 other youngsters also attended summer classes in New Brunswick, and most were 14 or younger, according Elizabeth Hough, director of the university’s Summer Session program, operated by the Rutgers Office of Continuous Education and Outreach.

The university also permits very young students to take courses during regular semesters, if space permits.

“We’re fulfilling our mission of a state university by serving their needs,” Hough said. “We recognize most of them are thinking Harvard, Yale, and Stanford, and that’s OK. If they do stay, we’ll be delighted. They are brilliant kids.”

While child prodigies on campus are nothing new – Rutgers’ youngest-ever student, Hannes Sarkuni, graduated at the age of 14 in 1996 – Rutgers is providing an increasingly friendly environment, said Rita Ostrager of Monroe Township, New Jersey, founder of a new nonprofit serving profoundly gifted children and their families, Higher Education Resources and Opportunities for Exceptional Scholars (HEROES). 

Rutgers is also a sponsor of the group’s upcoming conference, “Research Opportunities for the Profoundly Gifted,” to take place on January 23, 2010.

“Being able to take classes at Rutgers gives the kids an opportunity to do work at a level that challenges them,” said Ostrager, a mother of three whose youngest child, Ryan, 13, has racked up 31 credits at Rutgers. He is home-schooled.

Ostrager said many of the children affiliated with her group have been identified as profoundly gifted by programs like the Center for Talented Youth at the Johns Hopkins University or the Davidson Academy in Reno, Nevada. They tend to stand out in a particular subject, often math, where they test four, five, or more grade levels beyond their age group.

 “These kids are too young to move out of the house but need access to a university,” she said.

Rutgers policy requires students to be at least 16, but the university accepts younger students on a case-by-case basis. Parents are asked to sign a letter acknowledging that they are putting their child in an adult environment, and must agree to bring the child to the classroom and return 30 minutes before class ends “so the kid is not wandering around campus,” said Hough.

Hough, who screens potential students, met Ryan Ostrager when he was 10. Although he was accepted that summer, he did not start taking classes until the following winter.

“When he did come, he aced both his courses,” she said. “Ryan was accepted for matriculated status this fall, but he declined. He’s thinking about next year.”

Many people suspect profoundly gifted children are driven to excel by overly ambitious parents, but Hough said that has not been her experience.

“I don’t see pushy stage mothers and fathers here. The drive, and the intrinsic interest, come from the kids,” she said. “They are very good at teaching themselves.”

So it was with Ross Brown and his older brother, Louis, their mother says.

“We read to them; we didn’t teach them to read. We didn’t sit around with workbooks. They were very active, fairly typical kids who played tennis and rode bikes,” she said.

Louis, 13, who has skipped two grades, is a sophomore at Bridgewater-Raritan High School. He has not taken college courses but has attended Johns Hopkins University Center for Talented Youth for three summers as well as Hampshire College summer Studies in Mathematics for mathematically talented high school students. He will soon exhaust his school’s math resources.

Ross attends a magnet program for academically talented sixth-graders, but goes to the high school for honors algebra II and physics. His mom shuttles him between the two schools.

Friends ask her when the boys will get to college.

She doesn’t have an answer.