Two 13-Year-Old Girls Earn College Degrees

Two 13-year-old girls who went from grade school right into college are preparing to graduate--with honors--from Antelope Valley College in Lancaster.

The girls, who will share the stage Saturday as they accept their diplomas, will be easy to tell apart. Christina Brown of Palmdale will be dressed in a conservative suit and boots. Victoria Simiele of Littlerock plans to wear tennis shoes with a sleeveless pantsuit and spike her hair, which has tips dyed blue, purple and green.

Despite their distinct appearances, both are similarly humble about their accomplishments.

“It doesn’t seem like that big of a deal. I feel like a regular student,� Christina said. “I don’t want it to be all about me.�

Victoria, called “Vic� by her friends, said: “I don’t really care because there are other people who have graduated at my age. If I was the only one to ever graduate young, then I would feel kind of special.�

Although others have earned associate’s degrees at 13 or younger, they are certainly part of a small group. Of the more than 60,000 students who graduated from California’s 108 community colleges last year, 11 were 13 years old and about 150 were younger than 18.

Christina took her first class--in computer graphics and design--at Antelope Valley when she was 9. She got an A--the first of many for the girl, who has a 4.0 grade point average.

She took four classes at the college until it became clear to her parents that college was where she needed to be. Frustrated by the immature behavior of some classmates at her Catholic elementary school in Lancaster, Christina said she left in sixth grade and enrolled in college full time.

Paul Brown, Christina’s father, said he was initially skeptical, but now believes it was the best thing for Christina, whose 16-year-old sister Jennifer attends a private Catholic high school.

Of the 753 students in her class this spring, Christina is one of 62 graduating summa cum laude, a distinction earned by those with a grade point average between 3.75 and 4.0.

After graduation, she said she plans to stay on the Lancaster campus to work on a bachelor’s degree in psychology with a minor in history through Cal State Bakersfield’s satellite program there. By her early 20s, she wants to have a master’s in psychology from Bakersfield, plus a master’s in history and a doctorate in psychology from Stanford, the school she has always dreamed of attending. She hopes to teach psychology at the college level.

Her only regret: missing a high school prom.

Victoria’s path to higher education began in sixth grade. Although enrolled in the gifted program at Antelope Elementary School in Littlerock, she said she was bored and decided to check out college.

In her first semester at Antelope Valley, she took Chinese and two computer science classes. She did so well that her parents, Diane Asbury and Anthony Simiele, began to think of options for their only child.

After sixth grade, her parents began home-schooling because they wanted to have an official record of her academic studies away from the traditional school setting in case she ever wanted to reenter public school.

When Victoria took a night course, her mother enrolled too. The two even traveled to Pierce College in Woodland Hills to take classes not offered on the Lancaster campus and went to Moorpark College for some Saturday classes.

Victoria has completed more than 100 units and expects to earn a second associate’s degree next year. After that, she said, she may enroll in high school so she can play competitive sports--she favors basketball--and join Future Farmers of America to further her interest in veterinary science.

“I won’t feel like I’m going backward because everything is learning,� Victoria said.

She said she hasn’t finalized her post-high school plans, but does intend to complete a bachelor’s degree and eventually become either a veterinarian or a computer graphics artist.

Saturday’s graduation will be extra special for Victoria’s family because her father, an Metropolitan Transportation Authority bus mechanic, will also receive an associate’s degree after several years of night classes, some of which he took with Victoria. Both father and daughter will graduate magna cum laude.