Should we let wunderkinds drop out of high school? After all, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg all dropped out of college (and David Karp never finished highschool). I could see how much of the work he was doing at school wasn't relevant to what he wanted to learn," she said. "He always wanted to learn more than what the schools wanted to teach him. At times it was very frustrating. I was fortunate to find people that were able to teach him more, but he has gone beyond what high school could ever give him."

The tech community may be different from other industries. Degrees are not necessarily seen as a hallmark of achievement and programmers are judged on their ability to type lines of code. You are what you create.

What also sets the field apart is that computer programming is not taught at every high school, and even when it is, the most talented students often either "surpass the curriculum or feel it's not relevant to them", said Danielle Strachman, program director for the Thiel Fellowship. "They want to move at their own pace."

http://www.smh.com.au/it-pro/business-it/should-we-let-wunderkinds-drop-out-of-high-school-20130521-2jxsi.html