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Boy among men

Moshe Kai Cavalin, 10, takes statistics college classes at the East Los Angeles College in Los Angeles, Calif. Friday, May 2, 2008. The ten-year-old East Los Angeles College sophomore has an A-Plus average in his classes. College officials couldn't immediately say whether he is the youngest student in the school's 63-year history. Among child prodigies, Michael Kearney, now 24, is often cited as the world's youngest college graduate, having earned a Bachelor's degree in anthropology from the University of South Alabama at age 10. But Cavalin's professors can't recall having a younger student in one of their classes. He hopes to be an astrophysicist in a few years.
10-year-old is in college

DOWNEY, Calif. — With the end of another school year approaching, college sophomore Moshe Kai Cavalin is cramming for final exams in classes such as advanced mathematics, foreign languages and music.

But Cavalin is only 10 years old. And at 4-foot-7, his shoes don't touch the floor as he puts down a schoolbook and swivels around in his chair to greet a visitor.

"I'm studying statistics," says the alternately precocious and shy Cavalin, his textbook lying open on the living room desk of his parents' apartment in this quiet suburb east of Los Angeles.

Within a year, if he keeps up his grades and completes the rest of his requirements, he hopes to transfer from his two-year program at East Los Angeles College to a prestigious four-year school and study astrophysics.

But first, he has statistics homework to finish. Later, he'll work with his mother, Shu Chen Chien, to brush up on his Mandarin for his Chinese class. Then it's over to the piano to prepare for his recital in music class.

His father, Yosef Cavalin, frets about the piano-playing, noting that his only child recently broke his arm pursuing another passion, martial arts. He has won several trophies for his age group.

College officials couldn't say whether he is the youngest student in the school's 63-year history. Among child prodigies, Michael Kearney, now 24, is often cited as the world's youngest college graduate, having earned a bachelor's degree in anthropology from the University of South Alabama at age 10.

Cavalin was an 8-year-old freshman when he enrolled in Guajao Liao's intermediate algebra class in 2006. By the end of the term, Liao recalls, he was tutoring some of his 19- and 20-year-old classmates.

Cavalin has a general idea what his IQ is, but doesn't like to discuss it. His parents say they never planned to enroll their son in college at age 8, and sought to put him in a private elementary school when he was 6.

"They didn't want to accept me because I knew more than the teacher there and they said I looked too bored," the youngster recalls.

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