@intparent S-so th-the horror will ne-never end…?
@Poplicola is correct - UoC has a long history of accepting gifted, younger students.
OP, you can always stop reading. But we probably won’t stop talking. 
@intparent LOL!
I think most kids have rather insular life experiences and don’t have a good grasp of the national/international competitive whole. You have kids who are not exposed to other kids who are functioning at such a high level and think it is exceptional and then there are students like @XAtlas where so many do that they think it is the norm. Truth is somewhere in between. In our local world, the first scenario is true, but in our virtual world in finding classes to meet our kids needs, the second scenario is the dominate one. We have found once you enter into the realm of high achieving kids, that…whoa…hold on tight because there are some phenomenal kids out there and the number is not small. what these students are capable of is amazing. But then you equally have to step back into the world at large and recognize that outside that environment, most kids are not functioning on that level.
Camps are a great way for these kids to be around other kids with similar abilities in order to experience real academic challenge and have teachers who can relate to their level of ability but I an environment appropriate for their age. 13 yr olds at MathCamp are not going to not fit in. They will be amg peers. The bonus is that that is an experience that can go on the students’ resume.
Test scores are a simply a box to check off and by themselves don’t reveal much. It is all the rest that puts the individual person’s achievements in perspective. And then, on top of that, when applying to college there is this pesky little thing called $$ which can limit or open up opportunities regardless of abilities. @THEGAMER10293847 finances are going to play a role in all of this. As an international student, do you know your parents’ ability to pay?
My son applied EA to UChicago last weekend. He is 15 years old and skipped 2 years of schooling. He will graduate from HS this spring. UChicago was selected because of the wonderful history of admitting and integrating accelerated students.
When he visted the campus he was made aware of several students that were like him. There are quite a few 16 and 17 year old kids on campus who seem to thrive in the surroundings.
StinkyinKY: Glad to read that they still do. My son graduated (quite a while ago) at the age of 20 at UChicago after a great college experience. He thrived! In his case it had a lot to do with a college culture that was respecting quiet (semi-)philosophical and fun discussions with peers. In order to get friends there simply was no need to participate in big events or to join clubs. Especially during the first years a quiet discussion was all he needed. I can assure you that he has changed in the meantime in the sense that he does not avoid big parties anymore. By then, he simply wasn’t ready for them and at UChicago that was no issue at all.