Student Born on Leap Year Deserves Special Treatment Because He's 5, Classmates Agree

Usually Penn doesn’t accept prodigies who are younger than 12 years old, but this past year they made an exception. Lee Piere (C ‘19) is Penn’s first and only 5-year-old student. Standing at a mere 6’1 and weighing 210 pounds, Lee has always been exceptional for his age. In fact, he reads at a 10th grade level. His parents gushed that he’s "very mature," and that they “wish he would stop telling people he's 5 years old."

Born on a leap day in 1996, Lee has had a bit of difficulty playing in the big leagues at Penn. This semester he did pretty poorly on his Math 114 midterm, an unfortunate occurrence which can only be attributed to his age (not his low IQ).   

“It was a really tough exam, and I thought I had studied enough, but the curve really killed me. Some of these kids are so smart!” he said after spending 5 minutes choosing which of our lollipops to eat.

We talked to some other students in Lee’s class, and they all agreed that Lee should definitely try to get some points back.

“No, I definitely do not agree. It’s completely ridiculous - just because he was born on February 29th so he’s only had 5 ‘birthdays’ doesn’t mean he should actually get treated like a five year old. I think he's just dumb. He needs to grow up,” an anonymous classmate said, after which she giggled at her own pun. "For the record, I do not support special treatment for him."

We told Lee about his classmates’ unanimous support, so he went to appeal to his professor to get his grade bumped a bit, due to the fact that he’s only 5 years old.

“It was crazy,” Lee reported the next day. “My professor is so focused on his own research that he didn’t even notice I’m only 5 years old. He was totally rude and not understanding at all, like there are no 6'1 five year olds. The guy has no idea how to deal with kids!”

After he said that, Lee flailed his arms in the air a little bit and then started crying. We tried to pat him on the head comfortingly, but we are too short to reach that high. Instead, we offered him another lollipop and called his mom to pick him up. She sighed audibly on the phone.