August Siena Thomas isn't your average college student. In fact, most of her friends aren't even out out of high school. That's because she's only 17 years old.

"When I was 14 I started full time at UMass Amherst, " says Thomas. Yes, you heard it right she started college at 14.

The Montague teen will graduate this May from the Honors College at Umass. She's majoring in Linguistics and the Ancient World, and has minors in Italian, Ancient Greek, and Art History. But her resume doesn't end there. She got her high school diploma at 13 and started college courses at Elms College at 11. But one of her great accomplishments is finishing her first historical novel, which she started writing at 13.

"I started writing a historical novel set in 15th Century England , it's the story of the coming of age of a young king., " says Thomas.

August, who's was home schooled by her mother since she was 9, is the only student in Massachusetts to be named a 2008 Davidson Fellow. She is one of 20 other students who will receive scholarships from the Davidson Institute, a national organization that supports gifted youth.

"When she was in school I began to see that two things were happening, one was she loved to learn, and the second was she couldn't do it quite fast enough, " says Rosanne Thomas, August's mother.

She loves school so much she spent her summer vacation studying in Sicily. And once she graduates from college come may she plans on going to grad school to get her PHD. So what does she want to do after that?

"I more than anything else want to be a historical novelist and I'm considering being an academic as well, because I have so much learning things, " adds Thomas.