In his loopy, laborious handwriting, Mattias writes the first problem of the assignment on the blackboard. He goes back to his seat in the front row as the instructor looks at the sentences on the board. Mattias’ is first.

“This is perfect,” the teacher says. “The only thing I would do is put an `est’ here. Or you could throw in a `nunc or an `iam.'”

Mattias nods, absorbing the critique. He turns the page of his messy spiral-bound notebook and scrawls some notes.

His sentence was “Raeda plena puerorum et puellarum quod brevi tempore discedent.”

He is 11 years old.

Mattias attends Iowa State University four days a week for Latin 101, Introduction to Latin. He’s doing great in the class and scored 100 percent on his last quiz. The assignments keep him on his toes, but it’s good for him, his mom says. They stop him from procrastinating.

Nontraditional younger students at Iowa State are fairly rare, especially those like Mattias, says Phil Caffrey, associate director of admissions, who handles the applications of these students.

“Each year there are just a handful of students that we allow to enroll as undergraduates without completing their high school diploma,” he says.

In total, 33 or so of the 27,878 ISU students are age 17 or younger, Registrar Kathy Jones says. Mattias is one of the 11 students currently taking classes at Iowa State who are younger than 16.

They come to college in search of knowledge they cannot find in their high schools, middle schools or even elementary schools. And although these kids are sometimes a little shorter and a lot smarter than their classmates, they are accepted as peers and welcome the challenges they encounter.

The postsecondary enrollment option (PSEO) is one of the several ways students can enter Iowa State without having a high school diploma, and it’s the route most Ames High students take. About 30 Ames High students take college classes each semester, says Mike Avise, Ames High associate principal. In an entire year at Iowa State, 242 courses are taken by students in the PSEO program, Registrar Jones says.

Linda Telleen-Martins, facilitator and instructor for the Ames High Extended Learning Program, says students are utilizing the college system more and more frequently.

“We certainly see it as a way to expand the rigor of classes. This just gives another dimension to their experience,” she says.

The PSEO act, found in the Iowa Code, requires a student’s local school district to pay for college courses if they cannot offer those courses.

The act allows students from ninth through 12th grades to “enroll part time in nonsectarian courses in eligible postsecondary institutions of higher learning in Iowa,” according to a document from the Iowa Department of Education. The act is intended to promote rigorous academic pursuits and to provide a wider variety of options to high school students. Students enrolled in college under the PSEO program can earn college credits that count toward their high school requirements.

Though most are entering their senior year and may still want to attend high school part time, not all of them have even reached high school yet.

“Every now and then we’ll have a middle school student who is an incredibly gifted student,” Caffery says.

Jayadev Athreya was one of those who skipped the entire secondary-school experience and became a full-time ISU student without ever intending to finish his high school education. He was a student at Sawyer Elementary School in Ames when his talented and gifted teacher suggested he take the SAT. He got a 1150 out of 1600. The next year, he took the test again. He got a 1460: 760 on the math and 700 on the verbal.

Jayadev was 11 when he applied to Iowa State.

He deferred admission until he was in seventh grade, after spending a year in India and taking the equivalent of a year of math from his father, a professor of mathematics at Iowa State. His parents said taking the leap into the college system was better for him than skipping a few grades into the high school.

“He obviously has the same ability of many college students,” says his mother, Krishna Athreya. “We didn’t want to accelerate him within the school system because we weren’t sure of the social acceptance. It’s a little bit easier to be left alone in college.”

Jayadev began his career as a full-time college student when he was 13, with a number of college credits already under his belt.

Before Jayadev graduated four years later in 2000, with a nearly perfect 3.9 GPA, a bachelor’s in mathematics and a minor in Latin, he had participated in the full spectrum of ISU activities.

He was active in politics, volunteering as a member of the ISU Democrats, serving as a delegate to the Story County convention and completing a political science independent study. He traveled to Penn State and Michigan Tech to participate in mathematics research programs and spent time as a sports reporter and columnist for the Iowa State Daily, he says.

Jayadev decided not to move into the residence halls and lived at home for all but one semester of his undergraduate career, which was a great choice, he says.

“Staying at home allowed me to stay in touch with my friends with whom I had attended elementary school, and stay in touch with some middle and later high school activities,” he says.

He took drivers’ education at Ames High and went to the prom his senior year. But Jay was 16 and it was his senior year of college.

When Jayadev graduated from Iowa State, he and his parents went their separate ways. Jayadev went to Chicago, and his parents went to Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y.

“I think my mom would have liked for me to go to Cornell,” he says, but the separation from his parents has been good for him, although they were truly supportive through his undergraduate years.

“They obviously have been great,” he says. “We came up with the idea together, they supported me and brought me here. It’s all due to them.”

He is currently 18 years old, a member of his school’s ultimate frisbee team, and a second-year doctorate student in mathematics at the University of Chicago.

He’s living the normal college-student life.

I play a lot of ultimate frisbee, listen to a lot of music – I have an awesome vinyl collection,” he says. “I have a lot of buddies I go to parties with a lot.”

The final category of students entering Iowa State early is made up of students who simply want to take a class or two.

Mattias falls under this category. He received his opportunity through the Iowa Talent Search, a program developed in 1989 to identify intellectually gifted youth in Iowa, says Davis, whose office runs the search.

The program has several levels. The one Mattias went through allows 3,000 seventh through ninth graders take the SAT-1 or the ACT. Mattias took both, but netted his three-credit scholarship with his performance on the verbal portion on the SAT. He scored so well he received the title of Governor’s Scholar: the award given to the top 1 percent of seventh-grade students in the state.

“He’s well over one in 10,000 in ability. That’s pretty phenomenal,” Davis says.

Mattias is only enrolled for one class at Iowa State, and it’s the first classroom of his life: he’s homeschooled.

“Just listening to a lecture and taking notes is a new experience for him,” says Brigitte, his mother.

“But so far he has done very well,” says Phil, Mattias’ father. “We kind of viewed this as an experiment.”

His mom brings him to campus four days a week just for the Latin class. The rest of his day is spent learning algebra, physics, pestering his older sister and two younger brothers, studying for the next spelling bee (he came in fourth in the state last year and won the unofficial `Rookie of the Year’ title), playing in the backyard, slurping down a bowl of his favorite soup and reading anything he can get his hands on: a random brochure for a sonic toothbrush he found on the dining room table, one of his family’s thousands of books and the giant National Geographic Atlas he got for third-place finish in the state geography bee.

He keeps college hours – staying up late and sleeping in.

“I think. I lay in bed for a long time and think.” he says. “Maybe if I close my eyes more I would fall asleep faster. I wonder … what would happen if someone tried to fall asleep with their eyes open?”

If these options for advancement had not been available to students like Mattias and Jayadev, boredom and lazy learning habits could have developed, Davis says, causing problems throughout their lives. Gifted students begin having problems when their intelligence is mismatched with their curriculum, he says. Allowing a student to move ahead challenges and stimulates him or her, Davis says, and if the acceleration is appropriate, the student will be successful. This is particularly true for as large an acceleration as the two boys have experienced, says Sally Beisser, professor of education at Drake University and expert on gifted -student acceleration.

“What we know about gifted learners is that advancing them one grade level is an insufficient challenge,” Beisser says. “These students suffer from abject boredom [in grade school] and when they have a strong grasp of the curriculum, they often just get more of the same. If they do well on math, they get another problem set.”

These students have a right to intellectual challenge, she says.

“It’s as if there were a person who could run fast and you told them they could only run a certain time, or only train in a certain way,” she says.

Davis says he has never worked with a gifted child who has suffered from acceleration.

“Every student that I have ever worked with has shown positive benefits,” he says. “There’s kind of a myth that these students are socially and emotionally fragile, but most of these students do very well.”

Krishna Athreya, Jayadev’s mother, says Jayadev really didn’t experience any problems adjusting to college life, since both of his parents were professors at Iowa State.

“Everyone has been very accepting and he didn’t have any difficulties,” she says.

Jayadev agrees.

“There was no coldness, I got along with all my classmates,” he says. “I grew up in Ames and, honestly, I felt more comfortable on campus than most of my friends did who came from smaller towns.”

John Thomas, associate professor of foreign languages and literatures, has taught both Jayadev and Mattias Latin.

Things may have been a bit strange at the beginning of the semester for Mattias, he says, but the experience Thomas gained from working with Jayadev taught him how to deal with young students in the classroom. He didn’t make a special point to introduce Mattias to the classroom, because he’s just another student, he says.

“I’m not sure that would be appropriate. No, I don’t think that’s necessary,” he says.

Brigitte, Mattias’ mother, says Thomas’ attitude about Mattias is comforting.

“You always wonder, is that the right thing,” she says. “What will other people think, how accepting will other people be? Professor Thomas was really accepting of the fact. He didn’t think it was strange. I don’t know that every faculty member would be that willing to have an 11-year-old in the class. It made it a more positive experience for Mattias.”

Mattias’ classmates have no qualms about having a classmate who is nearly two feet shorter than they are.

“I guess it was surprising at first, but I’ve gotten used to it,” says Brian Rumsey, sophomore in liberal arts and sciences. “He seems like he can keep up with the material; he knows what’s going on in class. I think it would be harder for him, being around people twice his age. They’re so much more mature; they talk about different things.”

“He makes me feel incompetent because he knows all the answers and I don’t,” says Chuck Ripley, senior in mathematics, jokingly.

“But we don’t treat him any differently than anyone,” says Thao Nguyen, sophomore in interdisciplinary studies.

Thomas says he knows that Latin and college are good choices for both Mattias and Jayadev.

“Latin students tend to be of a mold, they seem to get along well. Maybe it’s Iowa nature in general, but there’s kind of a camaraderie developing,” he says. “In high school it wasn’t popular to be bright, but at the university level there’s acceptance of people who are gifted.”

No matter how accepting their classmates and instructors are, advancing students into a college situation is a tough transition. Although they are intellectually equal to their classmates, they frequently are at a different social level.

“They may be ready academically for the college situation, but we have to wonder whether they are ready for the rest,” Caffrey says.

But once a student is given the opportunity to get into courses that are stimulating and intellectually challenging, many of the social issues disappear, Davis says.

“For example, with Mattias, on one level he can do his Latin class and on another level he goes out and enjoys his scouting with his same-age peers,” Davis says.

Mattias’ father says Mattias is simply a normal kid with a great mind.

“Mattias is a classic example of asynchronous development,” he says. “He’s definitely an 11-year-old boy in many ways, but you don’t talk to him like a kid.”

But he has fun like a kid. Mattias plays soccer a couple nights a week and spends one weekend a month tying knots and playing cards around the campfire in the great outdoors with his Scouting buddies.

But before he leaves for this weekend’s trip, he must decide how he’s going to dress. He begins by galloping up the stairs to put on his Scout shirt over a sweatshirt to keep warm in the crisp fall air.

He thunders back down five minutes later, needing advice.

“Maybe I should have the sweatshirt over so then I could at least take it off when I get warm,” he says, wiggling his loose left incisor.

“You won’t get warm,” his mother says.

“I will in the van,” he warns.

“Ask your dad.”

“Dad.” he yells and wanders off.

Presently the stairs rumble again. Mattias’ father comes into the kitchen.

“I told him he could take his sweatshirt off and just take a coat,” he says.

The kids have no regrets about their choices.

Mattias says he likes his class, and may be headed back for more after this first taste of college.

“That would kinda be cool . more Latin stuff would kinda be cool,” he says.

Jayadev says he would do it all over again in a heartbeat.

“I mean, think about if for a second. I’m 18 years old, living in one of the best cities of the world, and free to do as I choose.”