To say that 9-year-old William Maillis is smart would be an understatement. Sure, on the surface he seems like other kids his age—as People reports, just like most boys his age, William loves “video games, knock-knock jokes, sports, and hanging out with friends.”
But while other kids his age are now in the fourth grade learning the basics of fractions and algebra, William is taking a full load at the Community College of Allegheny County to prepare for his life as a full-fledged college student at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh next year.
As William has been the youngest student in his class for years, it doesn’t bother him. “I’m used to it by now,” he told People.
“He’s able to keep up, and he’s had A’s in the courses that he’s taken here at CCAC,” Associate Academic Dean Tomi Waters told KDKA. “So he’s more than excelling in those classes.”
“I want to prove to everybody that God does exist”
child genius Photo: LoneWolf & The Three Muskadoggies/YouTube
“We haven’t steered away from any topics: Hitler, Mussolini, the Holocaust, wars,” his history professor Aaron Hoffman said to People. “If he’s here for college, he’s going to get college-level material.” Hoffman has noticed, however, that William doesn’t take notes like the other students. Instead, he just listens intently to absorb the lesson.
William aims to study astrophysics and eventually earn a doctorate degree and work as an astrophysicist. If that seems like a lot, his ultimate goal is even more ambitious.
“I want to prove to everybody that God does exist,” he says, going on to explain that he would do so by showing that only intelligent design could have made the formation of the universe possible.
On the next page: find out why William was rejected from kindergarten when he was 4 years old.
William could form complete sentences at seven months old. He could add at 21 months; multiply, read, and write at the age of 2; and learned algebra, sign language, and Greek at 4; geometry and Chinese numbers and reading at 5; and trigonometry at 7.
It’s curious to note that though his genius should be apparent, William was turned down from kindergarten at age 4 after he couldn’t name gray as a color (because, as his dad explained to People, “gray is a shade, not a color”) or identify a thermometer (the Maillis family used a digital ear thermometer, hence the confusion).
“God gave you a gift”
child genius Photo: crashingalice/Instagram
However, after a few IQ tests with a college psychologist who declared him a “pure genius”, the school reconsidered and let him enroll.
“William was just very sharp,” his father explains. “William remembers everything he sees.”
“I just want him to appreciate the gift he has, which I think he does,” Maillis went on. “I tell him, ‘God gave you a gift. The worst thing would be to reject that gift and not use it for the betterment of the world.’ “
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