A teen who began college when she was 10 got a doctorate degree at age 17.
Dorothy Jean Tillman II participated in Arizona State University’s commencement on May 6. It was the teen from Chicago’s latest step on her path to college, which began when she took her first class at age 10.
She got her associate’s, bachelor’s, and master’s degrees then.
Associate professor Leslie Manson told ABC’s “Good Morning America” on Monday that Tillman became the youngest person to earn a doctoral degree in integrated behavioural health at Arizona State when she successfully defended her research in December 2023. She was 17 years old.
“It’s a wonderful celebration, and we hope … that Dorothy Jean inspires more students,” Manson said. “But this is still something so rare and unique.”
Family and friends call Tillman “Dorothy Jeanius.” She is the granddaughter of Dorothy Tillman, who used to be an alderwoman in Chicago.
At a time when most kids are just getting used to middle school, Tillman’s mother put her in classes at the College of Lake County in northern Illinois, where she majored in psychology and earned her associate’s degree in 2016.
Tillman graduated from Excelsior College in New York in 2018 with a bachelor’s in arts. About two years later, she got her master’s of science from Unity College in Maine before being accepted in 2021 into Arizona State’s Behavioral Health Management Program.
She did most of her schoolwork from home or online.
Before she graduated from Arizona State, Tillman went to the event in person and spoke to the graduates.
The Associated Press spoke with Tillman on May 14, and she said that her grandmother and following her mother’s advice helped her do well in school.
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“Everything that we were doing didn’t seem abnormal to me or out of the ordinary until it started getting all of the attention,” said Tillman, now 18.
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