15-year-old graduates from High Point University, believed youngest ever

A 15-year-old walked across High Point University’s graduation stage in High Point and, by the school’s account, became its youngest graduate ever. Kal Burgess-Hicks earned a bachelor’s degree in biology on May 2, 2026, in a campus ceremony that drew thousands of graduates and families to the Nido and Mariana Qubein Arena and Conference Center.

High Point University held two undergraduate commencement ceremonies that day, one at 9 a.m. and another at 2:30 p.m., a sign of how large the spring class had become. Burgess-Hicks’ degree, and the age at which he earned it, stood out in a weekend built around milestones.

His path to that stage began years earlier. FOX8 WGHP reported that he started reading at about 1.5 years old and was doing fourth-grade math by age 3. That kind of early academic acceleration helps explain why his family kept moving him forward at his own pace rather than forcing him into a conventional track. His father described the challenge as keeping up with him.

Burgess-Hicks said he has always loved learning and told the station that the best advice he could give other students is to find what they are good at, find what they like, and then learn at their own pace. That approach has shaped a trajectory that moved him from an unusually advanced child into a college graduate before most Guilford County teenagers have reached high school senior year.

The university had already been following his progress. In June 2025, High Point University reported that Burgess-Hicks was a 14-year-old senior spending his summer helping biology professor Dr. Alexander Mosier with research. The school said then that he hoped to apply to medical school and become a neurosurgeon, a goal it repeated in its commencement coverage this spring.

FOX8 identified him in December 2023 as Kal Hyun Burgess Hicks, then 13 years old, underscoring how long his unusual academic path has been visible in the community. For High Point and the broader Guilford County area, his graduation is more than a campus story. It is a concrete example of what happens when a student with rare drive is met with family support, institutional flexibility and room to advance as fast as his abilities allow.