14-year-old SWFL boy looks to earn HS diploma, college degree simultaneously

A Southwest Florida teen is jumping four years ahead by getting his high school diploma and a bachelor’s degree all in one. The child prodigy has a goal to turn his hobby into a career, and his family is ready to help make that happen by packing up and moving to Florida’s East Coast.

Noah Rapson is 14 years old, and he loves computers. He started playing on them and now he builds them.

“It’s interesting to see how it all works, and all the design, and all the effort that’s put in to develop all these technologies that influence our daily lives,” Noah said.

He has earned the chance to turn his hobby into a career, being among 175 students accepted to Florida Atlantic University’s high school program.

FAU accepted 13% of its applicants this year.

“It took a while for it to like set in because I didn’t think – I was honestly doubting if I was going to get in or not,” Noah said. “They offer most of what a normal high school has. It’s just the learning is at an accelerated pace.”

Noah is determined to study computers, engineering, or science. Following his completion of the FAU program, he wants to attend MIT.

FAU told us most students earn three years of college credit during their four years of high school.

But Noah is not like most students.

“He’s dead set on doing everything possible to graduate with that bachelor’s degree,” mother Amanda Rapson said.