He graduated from high school at age 14, from college at 18. When Anthony Sikorski graduates from Marquette University Law School at age 21 on May 16, he will be the youngest graduate of the university in over 75 years.
In August, he will go to work as a law clerk for state Supreme Court Justice Annette Ziegler.
Sikorski’s achievements have come while he’s fought a plethora of medical issues. He’s battled chronic lung disease, Crohn’s disease, postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS) and Ehlers-Danlos, a connective tissue disorder, and adrenal insufficiency.
Sikorski said his three years of law school were busy but rewarding. When he started at age 18, he didn’t know much about law other than U.S. politics and election law, something he took a liking to.
By the end of his first year, he was invited to join the Marquette Law Review Journal, a student-run publication that covers a broad range of legal topics. As a sophomore, he became the journal’s editor-in-chief.
Sikorski also participated in the law school’s moot court program, where students learn what it’s like to argue an appellate-level case by preparing legal research, writing briefs and completing oral arguments in front of a panel of judges. He also took classes in areas such as constitutional law and environmental law.
“To the outsider, I know it’s really impressive, but to me, I just have done what I’ve always done: work hard, be dedicated, keep my head down, enjoy what I’m doing,” Sikorski said in a May 11 phone interview.
Sikorski’s mom, Jill, said her son’s time in law school have gone “incredibly fast.”
“It seems like he was just going in for orientation. So some days in our lives can seem incredibly long and weeks can seem long, you look back at how realize how fast time goes. My husband and I, and even his brother William could not be any more proud of him or happier for him,” she said in a phone interview May 12.
Intelligence from a young age
When Anthony was 2, he started reading.
“At first I thought he was memorizing because we read books to him all the time,” Jill Sikorski said. “That’s what he loved, to have you read to him. But he actually was reading [by himself].”
When Anthony was 5, world-renowned psychologist Sylvia Rimm tested him.
“She never thought that he would even have to skip more than one grade because she thought that he would be challenged enough at the school.” Jill Sikorski said. “Every summer he would go back to see her and she would test him again and talk to him and monitor his social acceptance as well and every year he surpassed everything.”
When the Sikorskis moved to Wisconsin from Illinois in 2012, Anthony was 7. He started at Swallow School in Merton in the fourth grade, but was taking sixth-grade math.
All told, Anthony would end up skipping four full grades and six grades of math.
By age 9, Anthony was in eighth grade at Swallow School, but taking geometry at the nearby Arrowhead High School.
He started full time at Arrowhead at age 10. While in high school, Anthony played the bells and xylophone in the marching band for four years and played percussion in the wind symphony and wind ensemble and took Advanced Placement classes. He was also accepted socially, his mom said.
“He had great friends that looked out for him and they stuck together,” she said.
In 2019, at age 14, Anthony graduated from Arrowhead High School, earning the White House Commission on Presidential Scholars’ U.S. Presidential Scholar Award his senior year. He was one of 161 students recognized nationwide for the honor, which recognizes students’ accomplishments in the academic, arts and career and technical education fields. He earned a 4.0 GPA in his senior year and enrolled at Carroll University in fall 2019.
While at Carroll, Anthony majored in biology. During a 2023 interview with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, he said his favorite classes were preorganic chemistry and biochemistry; he also enjoyed music history.
In 2023, Anthony graduated from Carroll University with a bachelor’s degree in biology and minors in biochemistry and math.
He was accepted into the Medical College of Wisconsin, but “a confluence of factors” led him to law school instead.
One of those factors was his diagnosis of Crohn’s disease while attending Carroll.
While both medical school and law school would provide him with enough mental stimulation and challenges, Anthony said he did not want to physically tire himself out and jeopardize his health.
“Everything in the law school is all in one building, much less physically taxing than medical school. So that was part of the practical consideration,” he said.
Another factor in his decision: A fascination with government, politics and elections from his seventh- and eighth-grade social studies classes had never left him.
“My favorite area of the law happens to be constitutional law, also giving me some of my best grades in law school. So I knew that I wanted to help the community in some way, shape or form. I knew I loved reading. I loved writing. I did a lot of that in law school. I’ll do a lot of that as a law clerk.
“So yeah, again, it was part practical, part interest that led me to side with law school, but again, I don’t regret that choice at all. I couldn’t imagine now pivoting again and going off to medical school instead of continuing in the legal field,” he said.
Dealing with medical challenges
Life has not been smooth sailing for Anthony, as he has dealt with a variety of medical conditions throughout his life.
Growing up, Anthony had adrenal insufficiency, POTS, chronic lung infections and chronic gut issues, conditions that he continues to deal with today. There were times he would miss school for weeks for hospital visits.
Then, in addition to his Crohn’s disease diagnosis while a student at Carroll, he learned he had scoliosis, an abnormal curvature of the spine, which led him to have to wear a spine brace for almost an entire year in 2021.
Throughout law school, Jill Sikorski said, her son went to school even when he was advised to go to the hospital.
During one unavoidable hospitalization, he brought his computer and a legal world citation manual to proofread for law reviews.
“He has excelled. He has made great friends. He has found his calling in life. He has met so many wonderful professors and students and been exposed to so many aspects of the law, and it has been absolutely the best decision he could have ever made to go to law school,” his mom said.
Message for others
Anthony has a message for people who have heard his story: Find something you enjoy doing and that you’re good at doing.
“If you can find something in life that satisfies both, pursue it with all the time and energy you have,” he advised.
Anthony cautioned that there would be challenges along the way.
“I’ll never pretend that I’ve had it worse than everybody else in the world. I’ve been blessed with a wonderful family, [a] very productive education that not everybody else is privileged to have, and so you take the challenges as they come, but the world keeps moving on, with or without you,” he said.
He said no matter what you have to do to meet your goals, you have to get the work done.
“It’s a wonderful feeling when you can look back at everything you’ve done and say that you have no regrets. If you can say that, don’t look back again and just keep working towards what interests you, what you love doing,” Anthony said.
Contact Alec Johnson at 262-875-9469 or alec.johnson@jrn.com. Follow him on X at @AlecJohnson12.
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: He started high school at 10. Now he’s Marquette Law’s youngest grad
Reporting by Alec Johnson, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
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