The Youngest Grad : A 13-Year-Old Palmdale Boy Steps Forward to Collect 2 College Degrees, With High Honors

Justin Clark’s mother held his hand when she walked him to his first class at Antelope Valley College in Lancaster three years ago.

On Friday night, Justin, 13, donned a cap and gown and joined his fellow students in commencement exercises to become the youngest student ever to receive a degree from the college, earning high honors to boot, school officials said.

Justin, who won a national age-group chess tournament at the age of 9, said the college classes were “more of a challenge than regular school, of course, but I could deal with it.”

Indeed. The slight young man earned nearly 100 course credits while at the college, far more than the 75 he needed to qualify for the two associate’s degrees he received at commencement. He also has been accepted to the UCLA honors program as a third-year student, although he is unsure whether he will enter the school this fall or delay for a year while continuing to take classes at Antelope Valley College.

“It’s really exciting being the youngest graduate,” said Justin, whose final calculus exam on Friday was taped by television crews covering his achievement. “I get lots of attention.”

Justin is one of three Clark children, who include a 24-year-old sister and a 4-year-old brother. His parents, Susan, an attorney, and Edwin, an unemployed tool maker for the aerospace industry, moved to Palmdale from Long Beach about three years ago because they wanted to escape what Susan Clark said was an increasingly dangerous urban environment.

Before the family moved, Justin had been in a special full-time program for gifted children. But when the Clarks enrolled him at the nearest elementary school in Palmdale they found that the only special instruction available was a one-day-a-week enrichment program.

“The minute he got into the classroom the teachers told me to take him out because it depressed him,” Susan Clark said. They told her to look for alternatives and suggested public schools in the San Fernando Valley that had full-time programs for gifted children.

While the Clarks were looking around, Justin was accepted at an early-entry program for academically advanced children run by Cal State Los Angeles. But he began taking classes part time at the local college to be closer to home.

“He was the youngest they’d ever had,” Susan Clark said. But he was hungry to learn. Soon, Justin was in class as much as 14 hours a day, attending the sixth grade during the day and college classes at night.

After 18 months, the Clarks were granted permission by the local school district for Justin to leave elementary school and attend college full time. Shy at first, he quickly became acclimated. He is starting a chess club on campus, has many friends and is considering a run for student body president if he sticks around.

“It used to be that we would pick him up from class right after it was over, and now we have to go and find him,” his mother said.

Robert B. Harris, a counselor who works with the college’s psychological services department, was assigned to help Justin make the transition to a college campus but Harris said he had little to do. “He fit in, on an intellectual level, with most of the people here . . . but he also maintained good peer contacts out of the school with friends who were interested in computers and other social activities,” Harris said.

Justin’s calculus teacher, Beverly Suarez-Beard, said he earned an A-plus in her class the first half of this year and will most likely earn an A for the second.

“Not only was he very bright, he was mature and he did the work and he participated,” she said. “He is an excellent student.”

Justin said that he is currently leaning toward becoming a physicist and that his favorite subjects are calculus and physics. “I like the order mixed with creativity of calculus and physics,” he said.

Already practical, Justin said he also enjoyed philosophy but that it “is not a very good major, because there aren’t any jobs.”

Despite her son’s extraordinary talents, Susan Clark said his becoming the school’s youngest graduate ever is the result of many people’s efforts.

“I feel it’s the culmination of not just Justin’s efforts, but also a family that’s stuck together,” she said.

She said his older sister, Teresa, “pitched in and helped” by driving him to class and the college contributed by being “so supportive and receptive to this kid.”

Clark also praised her son’s teachers “who never treated him different and accepted him fully like every other student.”

“It’s a group effort and everybody deserves recognition,” she said.

Still, when Justin received his diploma case Friday night only his name was emblazoned on the cover.