[moneyrunner]

We have a kid that was super book smart at a San Diego high school. And appeared to be super book smart at a second-tier college in the University of California system.
But he wasn’t smart enough to realize that there are few entry-level jobs in neuroscience research laboratories for people with “only” a bachelor’s degree so he apparently spent a year after graduation living in his parents’ basement.
He came late to the realization that he would need a doctorate to get a decent research position in a neuroscience research laboratory so he applied for admission to a doctoral program at the University of Colorado School of Medicine and was admitted.
He was admitted largely based on his book smarts while at UC Riverside. But he found himself moving up from a second-tier school to a first-tier school. He lasted a year in a three (or more) year program. While the University of Colorado has not said why the shooter withdrew from the program last month (and probably cannot comment on why he did so without his permission), I suspect he was not able to do graduate work that would qualify him to continue in a doctoral program. Either he is not as smart as we (and he) have been led to believe or he was spending too much time away from his studies doing something else.

Some very good points and a plausible scenario.

[livius]

Not plausible, because there was no reality behind his actions. He
was living in loony land, and even his mother knew that.

I would suspect he wasn’t hired because people who interviewed him saw crazy behind those eyes. It’s apparent even in his HS pix.