Considering his parentage, Seamus Farrow would likely attract attention anyplace. But at Simon's Rock College of Bard in Great Barrington, Mass., the only biological child of Woody Allen and Mia Farrow has a reputation all his own: Now 12, he's the school's youngest student ever.

An affiliate of Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, N.Y., Simon's Rock accepts high school-aged students eager to start college early. "Maturity matters more than IQ," spokeswoman Danae Boissevain says of the school, where tuition costs about $25,000 a year. "You have to take on a lot of responsibility."

Four years younger than most of his classmates, Farrow is undoubtedly precocious, but Bard president Dr. Leon Botstein wouldn't call him, or any Simon's Rock student, a genius. "He just learns more quickly [than average]," says Botstein.

Farrow—whose mom drives him to school from their northwestern Connecticut home each day—is apparently thriving at Simon's Rock, where he studied only Latin and biology this fall. "He's an extraordinary little boy," says family friend Maria Roach. He certainly doesn't seem to be part of Generation Pokémon: Roach says he has read Kafka since age 8 and when he met her family, "he whipped out his laptop and started doing his homework, which my kids found bizarre."