Exclusive: We track down seven prodigies tipped for
greatness.. and see how they fared
Child Genius
As Britain’s brainiest kid,
Elise Tan Roberts should have a glittering future.
The Mirror revealed
yesterday that the toddler is the youngest member of Mensa – at just two years
and four months old.
Her IQ of 156 is higher
than telly maths whiz Carol Vorderman and she has a phenomenal memory which
could be her ticket to fame and fortune.
But Elise is by no means
the first child to be hailed as a “junior genius”.
We tracked down a few
others – and found that a high IQ doesn’t always guarantee success as a
grown-up.
Andrew Halliburton, IQ 145:
works in McDonald’s
Maths genius Andrew
Halliburton’s teachers predicted he would make a fortune in computers or
banking.
He was so bright he went to
secondary school four years early and was just 14 when he scored an A in his
maths Higher – the Scottish equivalent of an A-Level.
But eight years on,
university drop-out Andrew now clears tables in a burger joint for £5.75 an hour.
He told the Mirror: “I feel
frustrated. I don’t really know what I want to do with my life. I’ve felt like
that for the last four years. What I do is OK but I don’t feel challenged with
my work, though I’m fairly content with my life. I think I might study
English.”
Andrew excelled in maths at
an early age. At primary school he remembers sitting separately from the rest
of his classmates and being given different work to do. Then his headmaster
arranged for him to study maths at secondary school when he was just eight.
With an IQ of around 145,
he could have been earning a six-figure salary by now. Instead Andrew, 22, who
lives in Dundee with girlfriend Lynn Connor, 21, has spent the last four years
at McDonald’s. He reckons his problems started when his primary classmates
joined him at secondary school. “People my age would say, ‘Oh you’re that
genius who’s already been here for four years’,” he said. “I’d ask them not to
call me that, I didn’t like it and didn’t cope with it.
“I was just trying to make
friends with my peers and be normal. Eventually I realised I was never going to
be the same as my peers. I changed my image, went round with my hair in a
mohawk for a couple of years. I took the idea that I was a bit different and
ran with it really.”
Andrew got a B in his
GCSE-equivalent Standard grade maths when he was 11 and an A in his Higher
maths three years later.
When he took the rest of
his Standards at 16 he got six As and a B, followed by two As and two Bs in the
rest of his Highers.
He went on to study applied
computing at Dundee University – but dropped out after six months. He said: “I
was studying things I already knew, I got bored, so I left.”
Andrew believes his
experience should be a lesson for Elise and her parents. He said: “My parents and
my sister think that I might have been pushed too hard. Elise should keep her
head down and try and enjoy it without feeling pressurised.”
Jeremy Roberts, being
brainy left him feeling bored
Jeremy Roberts (Pic:Rowan Griffiths)
At three he was so brainy
that staff at his nursery asked him to help when their computer went wrong.
Jeremy, from Watford, said:
“I can remember one of the staff who was new looking for a member of staff
called Jeremy to help sort out a problem with their computer and then she
realised it was me.”
He attended ordinary state
schools and became increasingly frustrated. “I used to get so bored because I
was ahead of everyone,” said Jeremy, who ended up with average GCSEs.
But when he went to
Jerusalem at 17 to study for an International Baccalaureate he was inspired and
ended up with one of the best marks possible.
Now he’s happily studying
Legal Studies at a Jewish study centre in Florida. “I'm happy with how my
life's turned out,” says Jeremy, now 20.
Adam Dent, studied
chemistry at Oxford at 14
At 14 Adam was studying
chemistry at Oxford but a year later in 1995 he left after being accused of
sexual assault on an older student – he was later acquitted.
He did an Open University
degree while stacking shelves at Iceland then went back to Oxford and graduated
with a first in chemistry in 2002. Adam, from Aylesbury, Bucks, now an IT
consultant, said: “Being a child prodigy is a double-edged sword. It can be as
much a curse as a gift.”
Terence Judd, classical
pianist
He is known as one of this
country’s greatest musical talents. But sadly there are few recordings of
pianist Terence Judd before his suicide, aged 22.
Nurtured by his musician
parents, Terence progressed with dazzling speed. At ten he won the National
Junior Pianoforte Competition and appeared with the London Philharmonic
Orchestra two years later.
At 18 he won the British
Liszt Piano Competition but in 1979 he killed himself by jumping off Beachy
Head. The biennial Terence Judd Award is now given to Britain’s best young
pianist.
James Harries, antiques
expert
From the age of five, James
Harries displayed an encyclopaedic knowledge of antiques and art. When he
picked up a piece of porcelain for pennies and sold it for several thousand
pounds his ability became national news.
At 12, he appeared on Terry
Wogan’s TV chat show and became a national celebrity.
In 2001, aged 23, he had a
sex change operation and changed his name to Lauren.
Now a counsellor and drama
teacher in Cardiff, Lauren still makes appearances on reality.
TV, including Trust Me I'm
A Beauty Therapist in 2006.
Ganesh Sittampalam took
maths gift to the bank
Ganesh Sittampalam got an A
in his maths O-Level at eight and the same grade in his A-Level a year later in
1988.
Originally from Surbiton,
Surrey, he graduated from Oxford with a first in maths in 1992. On hearing
about his degree, he said: “I yelled ‘Yippee!’ I’m quite proud. I'm happy
because I’ve done it, not because of my age. I’d have felt the same if I was
20.” By his 20s, he had a masters in computing and a doctorate in intentional
programming. Now 30, he’s an associate at Credit Suisse and lives in
Oxford with wife Amanda. They had a son, Alexander, last September.
Ruth Lawrence, degree at 13
Ruth got an A in her
A-level maths at nine, a first from Oxford in 1985 when she was 13 and was a
junior fellow at Harvard at 19.
Ruth, originally from
Huddersfield, moved to Israel in 1998.
She now works at the Hebrew
University of Jerusalem and is married with two children who she is determined
to allow to “develop in a natural way”.
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