13-Year-Old Set to Graduate from University of Minnesota

A 13-year-old boy is on track to earn his undergraduate degree from the University of Minnesota this year. 

As ABC News shares, teenager Elliott Tanner will earn his bachelors after majoring in physics with a minor in math, and currently holds a 3.78 grade point average. The teen has already been accepted into University of Minnesota’s Physics PhD program and plans to be a high-energy theoretical physicist and professor at the school.

“I have an incredible passion for physics,” he said. “It’s been one of my favorite things to do.”

Tanner started reading and practicing his math skills at age 3, according to his mother Michelle Tanner, and started college at age 9 after homeschooling and completing high school in just 2 years. 

“People who hear Elliott’s story say he doesn’t get to be a kid, or he grew up too fast,” Michelle said. “He still very much is a kid and the only difference is he goes to school in a different building.”

As for paying for the child’s PhD, his family isn’t entirely sure how it’ll all work out. Michelle says they are “exploring” all options for Elliott, who says that at this point, “everyone just kinda gets used to seeing me in class.”

Elliott’s story was even recognized by the cast of Big Bang Theory spin-off Young Sheldon, as the show’s star Iain Armitage said that the real-life super genius teen—who he calls a friend—“started explaining” some of the script to him. 

“I was like, ‘What?’ I thought they just wrote down random numbers,” Armitage said, per WCCO. 

Even with his remarkable accomplishment, the teen will not become the youngest college graduate ever. That title belongs to Michael Kearney, who earned a bachelor’s degree in anthropology from the The University of South Alabama in 1994. He was just 10 years old.