Michael Boby will receive his high school diploma in June, but he has yet to sit down at Penn Hills High School for a class in 2007-08.

Michael, 18, finished most of his high school classes during 2006-07 in an effort to start attending University of Pittsburgh a year early.

"Classes are a lot harder at Pitt. I got used to it," he says. "I didn't expect college to be so hard."

Michael has been working hard for a long time to spend his senior year of high school in college.

Talented in math, Michael finished most of his high school math requirements at Linton Middle School. He took algebra I in sixth grade, geometry in seventh grade, algebra II in eighth grade, trigonometry in ninth grade.

Taking several Advanced Placement classes and tests in high school also helped Michael reduce his required class time in high school. He did take one English class at Pitt to finish his high school credit requirements.

Michael learned quickly at Pitt that he can't speed through college.

His college grades weren't comparable to his high school grades until he realized that night sessions led by teaching assistants are required.

But Michael definitely is back on track. He made Pitt's fall-semester honor list for freshmen by earning a 3.52 grade-point average as a full-time student in Swanson School of Engineering.

So far, Michael is doing better in college than in high school, where he had a 3.3 grade-point average.

Skipping homework in physics classes and having a C in English were his flaws in high school, he says. But he scored 2,100 out of a possible 2,400 points on the SAT and is a National Merit scholar.

In college, he does all his homework and has an A- in English.

Michael will need at least a 3.5 grade-point average to get into graduate school.

He will attend medical school or work in computer programming or bioengineering, which will require five years of college.

For now, he is focused on the courses he will take as a Pitt sophomore next semester.

Maggie Boby, his mother, says she is proud of Michael's accomplishments, which he has achieved on his own.

"I don't feel I need to ask him if he did his homework," she says.

"When I stop and think, I think it is so amazing what Michael has done."

Her daughter, Melissa, may go through a similar early admission program at Pitt, University of Maryland or California Institute of Technology.

Melissa, who plans to attend medical school, already has been talking about it as a Penn Hills High School sophomore.