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Comment by netik | Hacker News Reader

As far as I know he never went to college, so he's going to have to pursue his BaCS and MaCS first.

There is generally no formal requirement to have earlier degrees; they're helpful for admission, of course, but if you can convince admissions and an advisor to take you on, you're in.

As far as I know, there is a formal requirement to have, e.g., a BSc to get a PhD or a masters.

Put it this way: can you provide even a single example that proves this to be false?

I know of just one instance actually (guy who is now a professor from Hong Kong, whose incredible experience with farming was counted).

On the other hand, I do know some smart folks without college degrees whose professors fought to get them in and to get them designated in certain higher level positions but they lost that battle.

Well, Jake's listed as Tanja's PhD student, so there's one example right there. If you google for a bit longer you'll find others who hold PhDs who don't have undergraduate degrees. It's definitely rare to be admitted this way and then not all these students end up successfully defending after admission, but the formal requirement for an undergraduate degree does not exist at some institutions, or can be waived with some uncommonly used paperwork at others.

Most people are surprised to find just how many things universities have a form to do. There's very few rules at a university you can't get waived with the right signatures on the right paperwork.

My own time in academia required a lot of paperwork...

Gregor Kiczales told me he had no bachelor's before his PhD. I expect this has been getting rarer over time.

He is listed by Tanja Lange as one of her PhD students: http://www.hyperelliptic.org/tanja/

You can't blame college admissions staff for trying it on, but no.

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