Harry Potter's Overrated

Child prodigies: You either love them (if they're your own) or hate them (if you're a jealous classmate).

Some turn out to be precocious little brats who know exactly how brainy they are; they never stop telling others about how brainy they are and then they start their own computer software firm to prove how brainy they are.

Others quietly go about the business of overachieving, leave education with awards falling out of their SpongeBob SquarePants rucksack and go on to make a real difference in the world.

From the level-headed and unassuming way young Minu Dietlinde Tizabi has completed the German version of the high school diploma at the tender age of 14, the indications are that she will join the second group.

Tizabi not only completed the Abitur exam four years earlier than usual but she passed with the highest possible grade, a 1.0. Out of a maximum of 840 points she could have scored on the test, the youngster from Pforzheim racked up an amazing 815.

A reader and writer of English

The grounded teenager, who lost her mother when she was just a month old and was raised by her father, doesn't see anything special in her results. Her friend Hanna, after all, scored more than her. Hanna scored 835 points -- but she is 18.

"I don't study more than any of the others," Tizabi said in an interview with Spiegel magazine. "But I do have a lot of hobbies. For example I took part in the Biology Olympic Games, just out of interest."

Now that she is a high school graduate, Tizabi said she didn't have any special plans for the summer vacation -- other than pursuing her usual interests in literature and creative writing.

"I love to read, especially in English," she said. "And I also write my own stories in English. I read the Harry Potter books in English…I think they're good but the whole thing is exaggerated. It's just a book like any other."

Some children already show an aptitude for learning at very early ages. Tizabi was definitely one of these. As a one year old, she was constructing the toys which came with her favorite chocolate eggs. She was reading at three, tackling encyclopedias and studying astronomy books. At age six, she went to school and immediately jumped three years.

Swiftly up the education ladder

"In total, I have jumped four classes," she said. "Because I could read so well, I was moved up as soon as I started school. When I started high school, I was moved up a year within three weeks of starting. All my friends were three and four years older than me."

Despite the tragedy of losing her mother at such an early age, Tizabi has certainly prospered under her father's guidance. Father Djamshid, an Iranian-born certified engineer in quantum electronics, is obviously no slouch either and has not only instilled a love of learning in his daughter but has given her the humility that he himself shows.

"She is no child prodigy," he said matter-of-factly in a recent interview with a local newspaper. "She is quite normal."

While she more than keeps up with her classmates in the academic stakes, there is one aspect of school in which Tizabi does show her age: sports. She is a lot smaller than her classmates and, as a result, has been taken out of physical education classes for her own good.

In the class, however, she is seen as a peer -- by most of her classmates. "With the girls, it was always okay," she said. "But the boys have never completely accepted me. Why, I do not know. I don't feel that there is any envy."

A career in medicine beckons

It appears that the future is hers for the taking and Tizabi already has a plan forming as to what she would like to do with her life.

"I would like to study medicine and then work in research," the 14-year-old said. "Medical research can save lives, this is very important. Therefore, I think that this is a great occupational goal. I would most like to study in Heidelberg as the university is very good there, especially for studying medicine."

And while age has not yet been a barrier to her achievements, does Tizabi worry that her tender years may go against her in the future? "Right now, my age isn't a problem in the application process and I have had only positive reactions from the universities."

"However, if I do get a place at a university to study…my father will have to go there and sign a parental consent form!"