After hitting the headlines for becoming the youngest graduate with three college degrees from the United States at the age of 11 in 2015, the Indian-American student, Tanishq Abraham, who is now aged 12, has been accepted to two University of California campuses — Santa Cruz and Davis.
"#OnThisDay a year ago, got 3 AS degrees & now excited to be heading to #UCDavis or #UCSantaCruz #engineering degree [sic]," Tanishq posted on his Twitter page on May 21.
Although the Davis campus is near his home, Santa Cruz has offered the child genius with the Regents Scholarship, which is the highest honour given to incoming students. However, Tanishq, who hails from Sacramento, is yet to finalise the campus he will join. He is planning to take up bio-medical engineering, and after graduating in 2018, he plans to do M.D. and a Ph.D. "We're kind of inclined towards [UC Davis], but the fact that Santa Cruz recognized my talent and gave me that scholarship – it's hard to make that decision," Tanishq said to ABC10.
Through the Twitter handle @iScienceLuvr, Tanishq has also interacted with many Twitterati, who have been inspired with the talents of the child prodigy. In one of the conversations with a follower, who asked him the secret behind his success, the 12-year-old student replied: "Be passionate, determined, hard work. Never wait till finals to learn! [sic]" and wrote "Success = happiness + inspiring others+ making change in a person's life [sic]" as his definition of success.
Tanishq initially hit the headlines when he topped his class at American River College as the youngest graduate ever with three associate degrees. He had then received a letter of recognition from U.S. President Barack Obama.
Tanishq was born in June 2003 to software engineer Bijou Abraham and his wife, Dr Taji Abraham, who hail from Kerala. His younger sister, Tiara Thankam Abraham, is an award-winning singer and also a genius, who has scored 99% in the Mensa-approved standardised IQ test, in which Tanishq scored 99.9%.
