They may have extraordinary potential, extraordinary problem-solving ability, extraordinary communications skills, and extraordinary critical thinking skills. They may be tremendously resourceful and almost entirely independent.

But all of these qualities only accelerate the learning process that happens in the real world. They don't replace it.

Edit: To be fair, given the choice, I'd rather have an MIT CS grad than some schmuck who barely squeaked through the MIS program at Big State U. But I'd take a good experienced dev over either of them.