Joe Petraro-Hyppolite spent his early school years in special education. His tics and difficulties communicating led everyone except his mother to think he was an underperforming student.
In third grade, a teacher noticed something different and requested a new evaluation. That’s when the number that changed everything emerged: an IQ of 168.
But before getting there, Joe had to overcome lymphocytic leukemia diagnosed in 2021, Tourette syndrome, dyslexia, severe obsessive-compulsive disorder, and bullying from other children, including a painful incident on his basketball team.
Today, at 13, he is taking an online bachelor’s degree program in kinesiology at Louisiana State University, which he expects to complete in May, and is already preparing to begin a master’s degree in global sports management at New York University.
