Los Angeles: Tanishq Abraham has accomplished more at age 10 than many students twice his age. The home-schooled 10-year-old Indian-origin genius has surprised one and all by becoming one of the youngest ever in the US to graduate high school. Tanishq, a native of Sacramento, California, received his high school diploma at a private ceremony at California Auto Museum on Sunday. Home-schooled since the age of 7, Tanishq passed a state exam in March that certified he had met the appropriate academic standards to receive his diploma. Tanishq even received a letter from President Obama lauding his accomplishment. “Congratulations on your graduation. This special occasion is the culmination of years of study, and I am pleased to join your family and friends in celebrating this milestone,” it read.
“It wasn’t easy because of the bureaucracy, but I have put a lot of hard work into this and I am very happy that I am finally graduating high school,” Tanishq, who has presidential ambitions, told ABC News. He is powering ahead, scoring well on the SATs and finishing up the community college classes he has been taking since he was 7-years-old. “I am going to finish my community college by almost next semester and then I will have my associate’s degree, after that I will transfer to university,” he was quoted as saying after becoming one of the youngest ever to graduate high school in the US.
Tanishq said he would like to transfer to UC Davis to study medicine. In kindergarten, he said, he realised he had a special gift. “I could read books that were meant for second and third graders, I was also able to do math like second and third graders,” Tanishq said. “My ultimate goal would be science, like scientist or doctor, but also want to be president too,” he said. “I really like home school,” Tanishq said. “I know that a lot of people think that with home school you don’t get the social interactions, but I have lots of extracurricular activities such as singing classes." “Even two of my friends came to my high school graduation from San Francisco Boys Chorus," he added.
His mother Taji Abraham says she decided to home school her son because he was too far advanced for his grade level, and that other students had begun to tease him and steal his belongings. “We did not want to hold him back,” Taji told ABC News, adding that the family provides Tanishq with opportunities to socialize with kids his own age through extracurricular activities such as boys chorus and swim classes. Taji said she was nervous at first about her son sharing a college classroom with students twice his age. "It was a little scary for us, the first couple of times I was there with him, but going through the first two classes it gave me the confidence that he could handle it," she said.
