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15-Year-Old Skips Past High School, Jumps Into Junior Year At Cal

BERKELEY (KPIX 5) -- High school is not for everyone -- certainly not for 15-year-old Sage Ryan who managed to skip it all together and is now entering as a junior at UC Berkeley.

"I'm not like a genius or anything. I just wanted a quality education," Ryan said. "A lot of people are like, 'are you like Doogie Howser or something?' and I say, 'no...I wish I was Neil Patrick Harris.'"

He actually has experience on camera. A few years ago, he appeared on America's Got Talent.

That led to movie roles. Now, in a story that seems right out of Hollywood, he managed to skip high school and go right into his third year of college.

Legally, I was home-schooled," Ryan said. "But I was taking classes at West LA college on campus and online at Citrus College."

He says he realized early on that traditional school wasn't for him. So, starting at the age of 11, his mom signed him up for community college classes -- ones that didn't have age requirements. That led to UCLA extension classes and it's as simple as this -- he got enough credits to transfer as a junior to Cal. He is majoring in theater.

"It's not cheating the system," Ryan said. "It's looping the system in a way that avoids all the stuff that does not need to be put in education."

Now Ryan's mom is counseling other parents who are trying to get their kids to do the same thing.

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