Tuesday, September 04, 2007

15-Year-Old Black Female Going To Ivy League

This story about 15-year-old Brittney Exline of Colorado Springs, CO who started school at University of Pennsylvania this week caught my eye. At first it was the headline which was noteworthy, but then the picture of Bruttney provided some more information not immediately offered in the wire report, namely that Brittney is African American.

Here is an excerpt of the standard wire report written by Kathy Matheson of Associated Preess that is running in many papers:

Brittney Exline is too young to drive a car or go to an R-rated movie, but the 15-year-old probably will not have much time for those things anyway now that she's starting her first year of college.

Despite the age difference with her 17- and 18-year-old peers, she said she doesn't really notice it - and neither do they.

"I didn't tell people right off the bat that I was 15," Exline said. "A lot of people were pretty surprised."

Exline grew up in Colorado Springs, where from an early age her intellect was evident and unexplainable. At 8 years old, she was in sixth grade; by 13, she had finished high school math. She turned 15 in February and graduated a few months later.

She is a high achiever in math and science, but is also interested in politics so she enrolled in a University of Pennsylvania program that will award her degrees from both the engineering and liberal arts schools when she graduates.
Interesting that the youth of Brittney and her academic interests make it into the first grafs of the news article but her race does not, especially when rates of college attendance by minorities is such a prominent and controversial national issue.

4 comments:

who me? said...

I'm impressed that her race wasn't mentioned. I get sick of "the BLACK Senator", "the BLACK doctor"- good for her for having accomplishments worthy of merit even without an asterix affixed explaining that they are further meritorious because of her color.

Anonymous said...

I agree that I am impressed that she wasn't called out for being black, just being smart. fwiw, I was a 15-year old [caucasion] college freshman at a top engineering school almost 30 years ago and no AP newswires

Anonymous said...

im very surprised im 15 and only 1 year ahead of my peers, im happy to see that people can get into college at that age

Anonymous said...

Look where she is now... http://www.gazette.com/articles/school-55479-high-year.html#slComments

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