9-Year-Old Pennsylvania Boy Just Graduated High School

Graduating from high school is a milestone event. Most students are 18 when they graduate but one Pennsylvania boy from Bensalem, a suburb Philadelphia, just graduated and he is only nine and he is one of the youngest to ever to do so, according to the history website oldest.org.

David Balogun recently received his diploma from the Reach Cyber Charter School in Harrisburg where he was studying remotely, reported The Guardian. He has already started taking college courses.

David is a member of MENSA, the high intelligence society and besides excelling in school, David loves computer programming, all things science, martial arts, and plays the piano.

A remarkable educational journey
David’s parents have advanced degrees but raising a child with an extraordinary intellectual gift  has been challenging.

“I had to get outside of the box,” David’s mother, Ronya Balogun, told  the local television station WGAL. “Playing pillow fights when you’re not supposed to, throwing the balls in the house. He’s a 9-year-old with a brain that just has the capacity to understand and comprehend a lot of concepts that’s beyond his years and sometimes beyond my understanding,”

Putting David in the charter school was a no-brainer for his parents. “When he heard the word STEM program, at seven years old, he was jumping up and down. I said ‘Okay, this is where we’re going, this is what we’re doing.’ He loved it from the first moment. It’s been an amazing journey,” she added.

David’s remarkable accelerated education began two years ago, when he became a student at the charter school. Shortly after he began attending the school. David placed out of the elementary and middle school curriculums and began high school, according to The Hill.

What’s next?
David already knows that he wants to be an astrophysicist. But he has to complete his education first. While he has already completed a semester at Buck County Community College, his parents are researching college and university options that will be more challenging.

They are looking into Ivy League schools including the University of Pennsylvania, Princeton, and Harvard,  but since David is still only nine, he can’t live on campus. “Am I going to throw my nine-year-old into Harvard while I’m living in [Pennsylvania]?” David’s father, Henry, Balogun told The Guardian. “No.”

No matter where  David completes his education, he will be one step closer to his dream of studying the universe and reaching for the stars.