"Good News: Child, 13,
Heads to College
29 June 2011, 8:34. Posted by PULL Staff
Doogie Howser has nothing on Autum Ashante.
Ashante, a 13-year-old girl from the Bronx,
will leave New York this fall to attend classes at the
University of Connecuit.
She plans to study medicine.
Source: NY Daily News
Autum will move to Norwalk, Conn., with her father,
Batin Ashante, later this summer, to be close to UConn.
“What she’s doing is groundbreaking but this is not about vanity,”
he said. “It’s about setting the tone for other black
and Latino children who will come behind her.
They’re always being told they are underachievers.
We want to show this can be done.”
Petite and cheerful, Autum has always proved exceptional.
She could walk at 10 months old;
she could read at age 2 and by the time she was 3,
she was writing and performing poetry.
By age 8, she reportedly had an
IQ of 149 (the average college graduate has an IQ score of 115).
Her father took it all in stride.
“She would stand on stage and read a book,
and everyone used to marvel at that,”
he said. “I just thought ‘How do I enhance this?’ “
Mr. Ashante is a retired single parent who also
desevers kudos for raising an exceptional child.
This is a ‘Good News’ story."
