Braxton Moral, who is 16 years old, is scheduled
to receive a high school diploma from Ulysses High School and a bachelor's
degree from Harvard by the end of next month. "It's not as hard as you
think; it's just an efficient use of time," he says.
Moral was born in Kansas, the youngest of four
children. In some ways, he is just like any other teenager. He loves video
games and movies. He plays tennis and goes to church.
But when he was 3 years old, he could "entertain
people" at volleyball games by calculating the score's difference in
points. People also said he had a big vocabulary. Still, his mother, Julie
Moral, didn't notice that her son was
gifted.
By second grade, he was getting bused to a different
building with third- and fourth-graders for English and math, she said. Then he
skipped the fourth grade.
As he got older, he started to become depressed. He
was asking questions like, "Why do I exist?" and "What's my
purpose?".
His parents took him to a community college for
testing. "They thought the machine was broken," his father, Carlos
Moral, told The Hutchinson News. "He was
like off the scale"
The Duke University Talent Identification Program told the family that Braxton needed to be challenged. Around age 11, he began Harvard University's extension, which "ideally serves" working professionals who can attend classes both on campus and online.
Braxton completed fall and spring college courses online, and began taking summer classes at the Cambridge, Mass., campus for the first time as he rose into his junior year at high school. He spends a full, eight-hour day in high school but has permission to work on Harvard assignments during a computer lab course.
He likes being on Harvard's campus because "it feels like you're in history," with buildings that are older than the founding of the United States.
The university pays half of his tuition, his mother says. "Because of his age and the fact that he doesn't have a high school diploma, he couldn't get regular scholarships or federal aid. We got some private loans to help ease the financial burden."
Braxton is pursuing a bachelor of liberal arts in extension studies in government. He says he wants to attend Harvard Law School and, someday, become a politician.
For now, he most enjoys a Greek mythology course he is taking at Harvard — and weightlifting in high school. "It's physical activity," he says. "Any break you get from the classroom is a good one."
