Antonia Vázquez graduates UD at 18 after years of accelerated homeschooling and academic exploration

Antonia Vázquez, a finance major in the Alfred Lerner College of Business and Economics, is UD's youngest Class of 2026 graduate.

Meet UD's youngest grad

Article by Marina Jones Photos courtesy of Antonia Vázquez May 20, 2026

Antonia Vázquez graduates UD at 18 after years of accelerated homeschooling and academic exploration

Antonia Vázquez did not set out to be the University of Delaware’s youngest Class of 2026 graduate. She was just satisfying an insatiable thirst for knowledge and research.

At just 18, she will graduate with a 4.0, a finance degree from the Alfred Lerner College of Business and Economics and a solid path forward toward a future in academia.

Just how did she do it? No summer vacations, coupled with a mother who inspired her to achieve anything she set her mind to.

Vázquez’s story begins in 2007. Born in North Carolina, she moved to Mexico at the age of three to live near her father’s family. In Guanajuato, a city dominated by bright, lively buildings and simple cobblestone streets, Vázquez was homeschooled by her mother, April, a lifelong teacher.

“Her role has always been someone who teaches and helps other people,” she said of her mother.

As part of her homeschooling, Vázquez attended school year-round. She studied throughout the summer and soaked up knowledge like a sponge.

At 11, the family moved back to the States, specifically, to Delaware, where her mother had enrolled in a doctoral program at UD.

“I definitely feel very proud of her,” the younger Vázquez said.

Antonia Vázquez matriculated to the University of Delaware at just 15-years-old. She will be graduating with a 4.0 GPA and will be getting her masters next year as part of UD’s 4+1 program

Antonia Vázquez matriculated to UD at just 15-years-old. She will be graduating with a 4.0 GPA and will be getting her master's next year as part of UD’s 4+1 program.

This spring, the pair will be graduating a day apart, with mother getting her doctorate and daughter getting her bachelors.

While April was starting her program, she still homeschooled Vázquez and her two younger siblings. When Vázquez turned 14, she set her sights on higher education through online courses and applied to UD.

“'I've been around the campus a lot. I'd seen how it worked. I was very excited about the prospects, so I applied only to UD,” she recalled.

And she got in.

At 15, Vázquez stepped onto UD’s campus and, for her, the rest is history. Like a duckling, she trailed her mother to and from school every day for the first year. She navigated a campus with students often older than her and experiencing things she wasn’t yet old enough to do, like driving or going to bars.

“I still can’t drive, but I’m getting there,” she joked.

One place she always felt like she could hold her own: the classroom. Over the years, she has completed multiple research projects and was a McNair Scholar and Plastino Scholar. She will return to UD in the fall to pursue her master's.

“I've learned a lot in my courses. I figured out what interests me most and I've been able to be relatively successful doing those things,” she said. “I definitely feel proud of that. I think I've changed as a person over these past several years, as well, becoming more mature and finding my calling."

Vázquez applied to UD at 15, after a lifetime of being homeschooled year-round. "“I've been around the campus a lot. I'd seen how it worked. I was very excited about the prospects," she said, "so I applied only to UD."

For Vázquez, that mission lies firmly in research and teaching.

As she sat on the second floor of the Learner atrium, the otherwise soft-spoken teen became the most animated when envisioning herself as a future business professor.

“If [my future students] come in and they don't know how to do something and they explain to me what they think they should be doing, being able to see how they're thinking, walking them through and when they finally get it and it clicks? That's really rewarding,” she said.

And she has advice for next year’s youngest graduate: Don’t sweat the small stuff. Vázquez notes that the person who put the most pressure on her when she first got to UD was herself.

Try a bunch of different things and treat everything as a learning experience, she said.

While she entered UD somewhat aware she wanted to do something in business, it still took her almost two years of exploring to finally land on finance.

“It takes time to know exactly what you want to do,” she said.