Sushma Verma, 13, is honored as "India's Child Prodigy" in Lucknow, India. (The Associated Press)

LUCKNOW, India In a country where many girls are still discouraged from going to school, Sushma Verma is having anything but a typical childhood.

The 13-year-old girl from a poor family in northern India has enrolled in a program for a master's degree in microbiology, after her father sold his land to pay for some of his daughter's tuition in the hope of catapulting her into India's growing middle class.

Verma finished high school at 7 and earned an undergraduate degree at age 13 milestones she said were possible only with the sacrifices and encouragement of her uneducated and impoverished parents.

"They allowed me to do what I wanted to do," Verma said. She lives with three younger siblings and her parents in a cramped single-room apartment in Lucknow, the capital of Uttar Pradesh state.

Having no television and little else at home has advantages, she said. "There is nothing to do but study."

Her older brother graduated from high school at 9, and in 2007 became one of India's youngest computer science graduates at 14.

This article has been corrected in this online archive. Originally, due to an editing error Sushma Verma's age was misstated in the headline. Verma is 13 years old.

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Indian girl, 19, begins master's in microbiology