Just because the media likes to talk about it doesn't make it true. It is totally common to skip prereqs. When I say common, I don't mean everyone does it. I m

Just because the media likes to talk about it doesn't make it true. It is totally common to skip prereqs. When I say common, I don't mean everyone does it. I mean every year a handful of students do it. In fact, it's probably more common at the top science/engineering colleges (MIT, Stanford, Caltech, Berkeley, etc.). I mean, every year these schools have a couple of geniuses that won gold medals at the IChO/IMO/IOI/other olympiads, have been taking college (not community college) courses while in high school, and/or did legitimate research while in high school (and I'm not talking about the "research" volunteerships that many high schoolers try to get), etc. I went to Berkeley, and the EECS department let you skip any prereq by taking the final.