Junior junior: Meet Stanford’s 16-year-old math major

Most 16-year-olds are worried about who to take to their junior prom or how to improve their SAT score, but this is not the case for Luisa Maria Boateng ’25.

Boateng, who transferred to Stanford in 2023, first entered college at Cal State LA in fall 2020, immediately after completing seventh grade. Just 13 years old at the time, Boateng applied for and was admitted to Cal State LA’s Early Entrance Program (EEP), which allows students ages 11 to 15 to enroll as full-time students at the school’s Honors College. 

Following the application process, students may be admitted to a five-week summer program, where they are evaluated on their ability to take college-level courses. At the conclusion of the program, students are notified as to whether they will be permitted to study at Cal State LA.

“The program is really just to get students into college,” Boateng said. “But after that, you’re just a regular college student taking classes with everyone else.” 

At Stanford, Boateng lives in Kimball Hall and is majoring in math with plans to attend graduate school. She said she chose to transfer out of Cal State LA in her second year because she wanted to attend a school with a larger math department. 

Stanford isn’t Boateng’s first time being away from home: she lived in a dorm in Colorado over the summer while conducting applied category theory research, which she said helped her transition to living on her own at Stanford.

Boateng said that there have been certain academic aspects of Stanford that have required acclimation. “The classes here cover a lot more than my classes covered [at Cal State LA],” Boateng said. Boateng noted the quarter system in particular as something that has required adjustment. 

Although Boateng has never attended high school, she said she doesn’t feel as though she has regrets about starting college so young. “I think the weirdest thing is just kind of having to be constantly in an environment where everybody’s considerably older than me,” Boateng said.

Erin Secel, a junior at Cal State Long Beach and Boateng’s former peer in EEP, described the program’s community as “close-knit” and found that it helped her feel less isolated in an environment where she was significantly younger than other students.

“[It] is also very helpful to have that kind of community… because otherwise it can feel very lonely …where you’re 14 and everyone’s 18 plus,” Secel said.

According to Boateng, people are often shocked when they find out about her age. 

“Even at Cal State LA, a lot of people don’t know that this program exists,” Boateng said. “They really have no idea that they could be sitting in class with, literally, 11-year-olds.”

Boating said that she found herself able to connect with her fellow transfer students, many of whom also come from untraditional backgrounds. Nia Patton ’25, who is 31 years old, said that age was something that she and Boateng bonded over during New Student Orientation (NSO).

“It’s funny, we are kind of on opposite ends of the spectrum, [with me] being older than the average undergrad and Luisa being younger than the average undergrad,” Patton said. “In some regards, I think of [Luisa] as a little sister, but I also feel like she’s so opinionated and so mature in the way that she speaks that, like, I can give her advice but I don’t know that she’ll ever take it.”

Makayla Butler ’25, another transfer student, said she first heard of Boateng during a speech at NSO, when the speaker listed the age range of the transfer class.

“I remember just sitting there thinking to myself, ‘How on earth did someone [who is] 16 and a half transfer schools?’” Butler said.

Butler said that during NSO, she and Boateng met and became good friends. 

“It’s really interesting being around her for sure,” Butler said. “Having a 16-year-old in your face really livens up the room.”

Although Boateng said she is conscious of her unique circumstances, she said that surprisingly, age is not something that often comes up in conversation. Most of her Stanford professors don’t know that she is only 16 years old, Boateng said, because she tends not to disclose it unless prompted.

“I have met some other people who will be like, ‘Oh, guess how old I am. I’m a grad student, but I’m only 20.’ I really don’t want to be that person,” Boateng said. “So I don’t bring it up unless people ask.”

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