An 8-year-old is studying neuroscience at Ursinus College. He’s the school’s youngest student ever.

Aiden Wilkins’ biggest worry about his first college class was whether his 4 feet, 4 inch, 65-pound frame would fit right in the desk.

“What if I’m too short for the seat?” he said. “What If I’m getting looked at? What if people are saying, ‘What are you doing here?’”

At age 8, he’s the youngest student Ursinus College has ever enrolled in a course, and while he may be shorter than other students in stature, his teachers think he’s likely to measure up just fine in performance.

The Royersford student, who wants to be a pediatric neurosurgeon, is taking an entry-level neuroscience course at the small private liberal arts college in Collegeville as a dual enrollment class through his high school. He is entering his sophomore year at the online Reach Cyber Charter School, after advancing quickly through the earlier grades and making distinguished honor roll last spring.

» READ MORE: This Bensalem boy is 9 — and just graduated from high school

“What I love about this kid is his level of intensity and engagement,” said Colette Silvestri, Aiden’s gifted program teacher at Reach. “It’s so important to catch them at the time they are engaged, and he’s engaged now.”

Aiden will not be the youngest student to graduate from the Harrisburg-based Reach charter, which enrolls about 6,100 students statewide. David Balogun, of Bensalem, finished high school there in 2023 at age 9. (Now 12, David is a senior at the online Southern New Hampshire University, studying computer science, his mother said.)

But Aiden is on track to be the second youngest, said principal Cody Smith.

“It’s not super common,” he said. “But it’s also not super common to have a student of their intellectual ability. They are amazing kids.”

Nationally, the youngest person to graduate high school was Michael Kearney, now 41, who finished in California at age 6.

Aiden is one of four dual enrollment students at Ursinus this semester. He is receiving an Ursinus scholarship for the course, bringing his family’s tab to $500.

“He’s so smart, it’s almost upsetting,” said his Ursinus desk mate Adrienne Dyer, 18, a freshman from Washington state, as they worked on a class exercise Friday.

Dyer wasn’t the only one who noticed.

“This is my most information-dense class,” said Naomi Mendenhall, 19, a freshman from Glenmoore, “so much terminology.”

That Aiden was taking the class at his age, she said, is “so impressive.”

Earlier this month, Aiden sat patiently through a more than two-hour interview with The Inquirer, aptly answering questions he was asked. It wasn’t until the end that he squirmed on the couch as an 8-year-old might, ready to move on to his next activity.

His mother, Veronica Wilkins, 43, an assistant vice president at Chubb insurance company in Philadelphia, said she saw signs of Aiden’s intelligence early. At one year, he started reading words in restaurants or on buildings that Wilkins said she hadn’t taught him. Then, as a toddler, he wrote an algebraic equation one day, she said.

“He just picked up a cue card and he wrote something like ‘2x plus 10 equals 12,’” she said. “He told me to solve it.”

She said she didn’t push him, not wanting to turn him off to learning.

“I just wanted him to stay curious,” she said.

Aiden had a lot of toys, but wasn’t that interested in them, Wilkins said. She remembers at a playground he told other children he had to stop playing so he “could do his numbers.” He liked to ask people their age so he could instantly tell them what year they were born, she said.

“I would even tell him like, ‘Just enjoy being a kid,’ but that wasn’t what his drive was,” she said. “It was to do more mature adult-type of things.”

Someone advised her to watch Young Sheldon, a television show that begins with 9-year-old child prodigy Sheldon Cooper at the start of high school.

Aiden attended preschool in person and then the private Pearson Online Academy for kindergarten through second grade.

Then Wilkins heard about David Balogun graduating from Reach — news outlets including Good Morning America covered his story extensively — and called his mom, who gave her advice.

Wilkins enrolled Aiden there as a third grader in March 2023, and he tested into the gifted program.

“In fifth grade, I literally told my mom I felt like I’m teaching the class,” Aiden said.

Since then, he has soared to 10th grade in just 2½ years, fully completing the course work for each grade.

At Reach, high school students can take classes year-round and accelerate as they are able. Aiden and David are among the few students who accelerated in the younger grades, the school said.

“I don’t think he would have excelled and learned as much as he has if he went to a brick and mortar [school], because you’re pretty much locked in to what they’re teaching at that point in time,” Wilkins said.

Aiden said he enjoys working at his own pace — he usually does schoolwork about eight hours a day, he said — and now feels like he’s in the right grade for his ability.

In ninth grade, he said, “I felt it did take me a little time to actually grasp the things that were being taught.”

Wilkins said Aiden thinks the work is hard if he can’t easily do it in his head.

“His challenge is not the same as our challenge,” she said. “I had to explain to him the average person has to pull out a pen and paper and figure things out.”

But Aiden and his mother said they decided he would stop accelerating through grades once he reached high school, meaning he will take a full school year for each of the next three grades. That means he will be on track to graduate at age 11.

His favorite subject is science, he said, and least favorite is math, though his mom said he is quite good at it. He has already taken high school courses in medical terminology and personal finance. And he has other talents, too. In March, he competed in the High School Shakespeare Competition at DeSales University in Center Valley in the role of Puck from A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

Aiden describes himself as “a social butterfly” and said he enjoys basketball, soccer, bike riding, and video games.

In his room sits a plastic model of a brain — Aiden said he has been interested in the brain for a long time.

“Without a brain, you can’t really do anything,” he said. “It’s how you move your arm. It’s how you speak. It’s how you hear.”

He decided he wanted to become a pediatric neurosurgeon so he could help other children. Similarly, he recently started a nonprofit, Fresh Start to Success, to raise money for school supplies and other supports for foster children.

About a year ago, Aiden said he wanted to experience in-person classes so he would be ready for college.

That’s when Aiden and his mom began looking for dual enrollment opportunities and settled on Ursinus.

Kelly Sorensen, Ursinus’ associate provost, recalled the first time he met Aiden, who showed up in a suit and tie and talked about his interest in neuroscience.

“That’s not something like I’ve ever seen before, so we decided to explore it,” Sorensen said.

He invited Aiden and his mom to attend an Ursinus event last spring where students display their projects.

“Aiden was just soaking it all up, as I kind of watched from afar,” Sorensen said.

Sorensen gave Aiden and his mom the syllabus and textbook for the class, and they decided to pursue it.

“Let’s see if we can feed this very hungry young mind,” Sorensen said.

Aiden’s professor for the class, Carlita Favero, uses lots of visuals and hands-on exercises, which Sorensen thought would be great for Aiden.

Still, Aiden’s presence surprised some at Ursinus. The folks handing out college IDs thought they were getting punked when Aiden and his mom went to pick up his.

“I was just like, ‘I have phone numbers. I can call people,’” Wilkins said.

Earlier this summer, Aiden met Favero, a professor of biology and neuroscience, who has taught at Ursinus for 15 years.

“He’s a delight to talk to,” Favero said. “I’m excited to see how it all unfolds.”

Her class is filled with mostly first-year students, all getting to know Ursinus, just like Aiden.

On Friday, following a lecture, the dozen students used pipe cleaners and beads to create models of neurons with different colors for the various parts, then stood in the front of the classroom and linked them into a system.

“I think I’m done,” Aiden said, after constructing his neuron.

“Where are your collaterals?” Dyer, his desk mate, asked him. “I’m literally just asking so I can figure out what that is.”

“I forgot what collaterals are, too,” Aiden said.

But they figured it out.

And Aiden found he fit in his seat just fine, too.

Aiden will celebrate his ninth birthday next weekend. The theme? College. The cake will feature a picture of Aiden with Ursinus memorabilia behind him, Wilkins said.

Wilkins and Aiden have already visited Harvard and Brandeis Universities and taken a virtual tour of Princeton University. Aiden is keen on Princeton or Johns Hopkins University, both high-level research universities where he could pursue neuroscience.

A graduate of George Washington High School in Northeast Philadelphia, Wilkins said she did well in school, too. She got her bachelor’s in economics and English literature from Wheaton College in Massachusetts and an MBA from St. Joseph’s University.

Initially, she, too, wanted to be a doctor but then fell in love with economics. Aiden wants her to pursue medicine so they can take the MCATs, the medical school entrance exam, together, she said.

“It could be on the table,” she said.