Tanishq Abraham is a 13-year old Indian-American child prodigy. He has achieved a large sum of accomplishments that many well beyond his age could only ever dream of-and that is only in the short time that he has lived. He was accepted into American River College-a community college in Sacramento, California-at the young age of 7. It was in this college that he graduated top of his class and earned three associates degrees. These degrees focus on general science, math and physical science, and foreign language studies. He realized these achievements by the time that he was 11, only a year after he earned his high school diploma.
He was also later accepted to the University of California, Santa Cruz, and the University of California, Davis, at 12 years old. The Santa Cruz campus offered him the Regents Scholarship, otherwise known as the most prestigious scholarship awarded to the University of California’s undergraduate students. It is solely merit-based, meaning it is granted based on personal accomplishments rather than financial need. However, after a long decision process in which he weighed the pros and cons of both campuses, Abraham decided to further pursue his education as a junior-year transfer at the Davis campus-considering its proximity to home. He plans to study bio-engineering and hopes to become a doctor and medical researcher by the age of 18.
Although not many people are aware of Abraham and his accomplishments, that has not inhibited him from being offered numerous honorable opportunities. For example, he premiered on the Lifetime reality competition show “Child Genius” in the beginning of 2015, and has been interviewed by various TV hosts-such as Conan O’Brien. He has also conducted a TEDx talk in which he discussed the topic of education. Amazingly enough, that wasn’t the only large-scale conference that he spoke at either; he also happened to speak at a 2009 NASA conference, at which he was the all-time youngest to both speak and to present a poster. Abraham’s accomplishments even earned him a letter of recognition from former United States president Barack Obama in 2014.
According to his parents, Abraham’s successes go back to when he was just a toddler. As a matter of fact, he was only 4 years old when his intellectual abilities were acknowledged and he was recruited to the MENSA IQ society, the oldest and largest high IQ society in the world. The only qualification for this top-scale society is to be at the upper 2 percentile of the general population on a standardized test, in which Abraham scored in the 99.9 percentile. A year later, at the age of 5, he took it upon himself to take the math courses offered by Stanford University’s Education Program for Gifted Youth-the EPGY-and completed the course within six months.
Abraham isn’t only intellectually talented, he also has an inclination towards music. He plays the piano and is part of a choir group. He also loves to swim and enjoys playing games such as chess, table tennis, and tennis. Additionally, he has a tendency to tell jokes-particularly science jokes. This not only proves that Abraham is well-rounded but also that he doesn’t hesitate to take part in activities that other “normal” kids his age might enjoy.
With all his honorary accomplishments, there is nothing stopping Tanishq Abraham from achieving all of his dreams. Such dreams including becoming a doctor, a medical researcher, a Nobel prize winner, and eventually president of the United States. No doubt about it, I will be voting for him as the leader of the free world-whenever it is that he runs.
