Nine-year-old Raymond Hsu passes SAT test to enter US colleges

After passing his NCEA Level 1 literacy and numeracy exams last year at just 9 years old, Porirua schoolboy Raymond Hsu is now aiming to secure university entrance. Photo / Michael Tsu via RNZ

By RNZ

Porirua schoolboy Raymond Hsu passes an SAT test to enter US colleges. Could he do the same in New Zealand?

After passing his NCEA Level 1 literacy and numeracy exams last year at just 9 years old, Porirua schoolboy Raymond Hsu is now aiming to secure university entrance.

Raymond recently received news he had passed a SAT test – the university entrance exam that is typically taken by 12th-grade students in the United States (equivalent to Year 13 in New Zealand).

Speaking to Jessie Mulligan on Afternoons, Raymond’s father, Michael Hsu, felt “relatively proud” of the accomplishment.

Hsu noticed his son’s talent when he was young, observing his grandfather practising Chinese calligraphy at the age of 3 or 4.

“I think growing up in bilingual and multicultural environments has certainly helped and was a good head start for him,” Hsu said.

“He was reading teenagers’ novel during Christmas holidays when he was 6,” Hsu said.

“At the age of 7½, Raymond was reading social science stuff like capitalism, business, communist, two world wars and stuff like that.”

Dropping him to school at Year 2 or 3, Raymond would ask questions such as “What is a square root?” and “What is an irrational number?”, Hsu said.

As an IT service professional, Hsu has been following the method of “plan, do, check and act cycle”, and he wanted to see where his child was at.

He admitted he had been pushing Raymond in some sense but said children with special talent required some guidance to reach their potential.

Hsu said New Zealand lacked advanced testing for school children and that prompted him as a parent to search for a proper way of assessing his knowledge.

“Getting Raymond to do NC level 1 literacy, numeracy just after he turned 9 years old was a result of that,” he said, noting that the SAT test was an exam that people could take internationally.

When asked if he was missing out on his childhood by working so hard on his academia, Hsu said he was not taking childhood away from Raymond.

He recognised that education was not “one size fits all”.

“He goes to birthday parties,” Hsu said. “He is currently crazy about aviation. He spent less time on gaming, but now more watching YouTube.

“He can tell you the difference in terms of the structure between a Boeing and an Airbus – something that I could never comprehend.”

Hsu often did homework with Raymond, reading for one hour and doing some maths.

Meanwhile, Hsu gave Raymond the freedom to pursue what he was interested in.

Hsu did not intend Raymond to leave New Zealand’s education system.

“He still benefits immensely from that,” he said.

“I’m actively looking at the options to getting him into tertiary as a young adult or a teenager, not jumping ahead too much of myself.

“That’s something that I’m looking at down the road.”

– RNZ