9-Year-Old Taking Full Course Load At CCAC

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) -- Nine-year-old Will Maillis is not your average college kid. His father says he was speaking sentences at seven months.

"I'd put him to bed, and he'd be in a crib, and I'd say go to sleep, go to sleep, and he'd say, I don't want to."

Peter Maillis, a Greek Orthodox priest, says his son was also good with numbers, adding at a year-and a-half, multiplying at two. By five, he was counting in Chinese.

"He finally gets to a hundred," says his father, "and I said, OK, what else did you learn? He said, I learned the alphabet, and he rattled off the alphabet."

"Technically there's no Chinese alphabet," Will responds. "There's a symbol for every word."

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Will graduated from Penn Trafford High this year, and is taking a full schedule at CCAC. But is he overwhelmed by older students?

"I'm usually at the front of the class," he answers. "So out of sight, out of mind."

"He's able to keep up, and he's had A's in the courses that he's taken here at CCAC," says Associate Academic Dean Tomi Waters. "So he's more than excelling in those classes."

CMU has accepted him for next September. Will plans to be an astrophysicist.

"It's statistically impossible for there to be no life on any other planet in the universe."

he has his own universal concepts.

The reason the universe is expanding is not bacause dark energy overpowers gravity, but because of gravity," he announces.

He has company. Will's best friend will be starting a full load of classes, also at CCAC, at the ripe old age of ten.