[ExTxMarine]

A college degree does not confer common sense.

Nor applicable intelligence. MOST degrees only demonstrate the ability to replicate data back to the "teacher" on paper. Unfortunately, this has nothing to do with "learning" nor "intelligence." It is memorizing AKA indoctrination, brainwashing, etc...

It is the same for high school education as well. My freshman daughter (high school), can decipher just about ANY math problem, but because she does not follow the EXACT path to arrive at the answer, which the teacher expects/demands she gets marked incorrect.

At a parent/teacher meeting, she was able to demonstrate on the chalk board exactly how she gets to the CORRECT answer, nine times out of ten, but the teacher stated that because she did not follow HIS method, she was wrong. I asked him what does it matter if her thought process is different, so long as she is getting the correct answers?!?!?

[Reily]

Given your description and providing she breaks no mathematical laws & algebraic rules to arrive at her answer. Your daughter is a potential real mathematician!
It sounds like she has the necessary gifts.
That should be nurtured!

Her HS math teacher by his statement demonstrates he is a NEA union slug and barely understand his subject!