BEREA, Ohio — One motivated local middle school student will never make it to high school. That’s because he skipped it and went straight to college! There are plenty of smart, ambitious freshman at Baldwin Wallace, but only intellectually-gifted Berea teen William Warren celebrated a 14th birthday.
Warren says for most of his life he struggled to stay engaged and fulfilled in his own school grade. It's safe to say he is obsessed with the science behind how things work. William was in a middle school gifted program, but it wasn’t stimulating enough. So, he reached out and found a Physics professor at Baldwin Wallace who ended up taking an interest in all of William’s wonders - like why helium is lighter than air, or the science behind darkness. He recognized William is smart as a whip, so he made a life-changing suggestion to the teen.
"I got to sit in on his 131 Freshman physics college class here at Baldwin Wallace and I did extraordinary, and that led him to telling me you should really just apply to Baldwin Wallace. He said you’ve got all these things done, like the SAT - I had already done it. So, we just decided I should apply, and I got in, and it’s been the most extraordinary decision of my life," says William.
William read Neil DeGrasse Tyson’s book “Astrophysics for People in a Hurry” while he was being homeschooled during the height of COVID. He said he felt instantly at home because problem-solving through science is his passion.
It's no surprise William chose Physics as his major at BW. The teen is on track to becoming the youngest student to ever graduate from Baldwin Wallace. He will be 17 years old in his 2026 graduating class. He doesn’t yet know what he wants to be when he grows up.