Prodigy, 13, admitted to CityU after Straight-A in GCE A Level

A 13-year-old prodigy has been admitted to City University of Hong Kong's intelligent manufacturing engineering program after he attained straight-A's in General Certificate of Education Advanced Level exams. 

The gifted boy, Sean Kong Ko-lun, was a grade 11 student from Hong Kong Baptist University Affiliated School Wong Kam Fai Secondary and Primary School. He attained straight-A's in five subjects -- pure maths, further maths, physics, chemistry and biology -- in the GCE A-Level exams taken earlier this year.

The CityU program he was admitted to emphasizes the integration of intelligent manufacturing systems, artificial intelligence and robotics, and aims to produce graduates who are capable of designing technology-based manufacturing and operations systems.

Parents of the 13-year-old boy started noticing his talents in mathematics after the two-year-old Kong was able to do multiplication and could recite the multiplication table.

At the age of five, Kong was able to multiply two-digit numbers in his head. He was taken to do the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children a year later, where he attained an overall score of 150.

His mother said Kong was capable of building websites when he was in primary school, and created several games and quizzes apps.

Thanks to his intellectual giftts, Kong has skipped grades five times since kindergarten and attended secondary five last year aged 12.