CLC student getting degree at 14
While a lot of kids her age are finishing their first year of high school, Grace Duval is set to graduate from College of Lake County and start work on her bachelor's degree at the University of Illinois-Chicago.
The 14-year-old Mundelein resident will be the youngest graduate when she receives her diploma with highest honors during the commencement ceremony Saturday at Waukegan's Genesee Theater.
"I've definitely felt young, but I've just been so blessed by the experience that I've had," Grace said Monday.
CLC officials said she'll be the second youngest to earn an associate in arts degree since the Grayslake-based school opened in 1969. CLC's youngest graduate was nine days short of 14 in 2000.
Natalie Duval expressed pride in her daughter's achievement. Duval said she began home schooling her daughter at 4 when the family lived in Georgia and she was too young to enter kindergarten. She had just missed that state's age cutoff by virtue of an October birthday.
"If she has the time, she'll read four or five hours a day," Duval said. "When she was young, 8 months old, I could sit her on my lap and read to her for two hours."
Grace, who's a member of the community college academic honor society Phi Theta Kappa, will transfer to UIC for the fall semester with junior standing. She'll commute to the downtown school in pursuit of a bachelor's degree in classical studies while minoring in French.
"I'm very excited, and I cannot wait to take my (UIC) classes. I'm very excited to get started on my bachelor's," Grace said.
UIC spokesman Bill Burton said Monday a student as young as Grace will be a rarity for the school.
"Our admissions office cannot recall a student so young going back at least 20 years," Burton said.
Grace's long-term goal is to receive a doctorate in classical studies and become a college professor. She has a keen interest in history, languages, psychology, sociology and the sciences.
If given an opportunity, she said, her dream job would be to host a program about ancient Greeks and Romans on the History Channel.
Grace was 11 and brought with her college credits from a Virginia gifted program when she started at CLC in 2009. Duval said CLC gave her daughter a light course load in the beginning, which required extra time for her to earn her degree.
It's not all books and reading for Grace, who said her age never was a problem at CLC. She said she enjoys judo, singing, and playing the violin and piano.
Duval will have another CLC graduation to attend in the not-too-distant future. Her 12-year-old daughter, Claire, started taking classes there in the current academic year.