The essay recounts the change in perception through a photo of a sofa that helped Cat Nhi get admitted to the University of Chicago, USA, with a scholarship of nearly 10 billion VND.
Tran Cat Nhi, grade 12 English major, Le Quy Don High School for the Gifted, was mentally prepared to fail the University of Chicago (UChicago). But mid-December 12, when Upon receiving the school's notification email, the Da Nang female student "froze" and had to ask her mentor to check again.
"After 30 minutes, I realized I passed and received a full scholarship, worth more than 400.000 USD (nearly 10 billion VND) for 4 years," Nhi recalled.
For this year's enrollment, Nhi plans to send her application to 20 schools in the US. After passing UChicago in the binding early admission period, you must withdraw all applications from the schools you submitted.
The female student said she liked UChicago because the school had a general education program, which helped her have a year to get acquainted and determine whether she really wanted to pursue the registered Economics major or not. UChicago also has an open academic environment and is ranked 11th in the world, according to QS 2024.
Cat Nhi, student at Le Quy Don High School for the Gifted, Da Nang. Photo: Provided by the character
Nhi's biggest difficulty when applying to UChicago was how to express a clear message in her essay. The school requires writing a creative essay about the student's best qualities as a writer, thinker, visionary, social critic, sage or global citizen .
UChicago has no word limit, which confuses me. The essay begins with the statement: "A hundred times of hearing is not as good as one of seeing, one touch is better than ten thousand times of hearing." Nhi doesn't really agree because in her opinion, even if you hear or touch it, you still can't consider it accurate. The truth must be learned from many different perspectives.
At first, Nhi intended to use images of whales and tuna as examples. Both have quite similar external shapes but inside are very different because one is a mammal, the other is a fish. If you just look from the outside, people will misunderstand. However, realizing that the article was not convincing, Nhi changed direction. The female student decided to talk about a photo of a sofa, thereby talking about her own cognitive development.
Nhi used his phone to take pictures of the sofa in the house. When I zoomed in all the way, I stopped and only saw a few small blue and red squares. I think the sofa is made from these squares. Later, Nhi understood that images are made of pixels, while sofas are made of molecules in the atomic world.
Nhi realized that her initial perception was not wrong, it's just that things exist from many perspectives. Nhi's essay shows her passion for discovery, continuous learning, humility with the knowledge she has, open thinking and willingness to accept multi-dimensional perspectives.
In the second essay, Nhi talked about her reason for applying to the school. The female student said she wanted to become an environmental economist, researching ways for Vietnam to develop a sustainable economy and minimize harm to the environment. I want to go to UChicago because there are good training programs, research projects and work opportunities related to this field of study.
"The two essays were 700-800 words long, had to be edited many times and took a month to complete," Nhi said.
In addition, the female student also sent UChicago a short video, further demonstrating her personality and passion for the school.
Nhi dreamed of studying abroad since middle school, started building her resume, doing extracurricular activities and preparing for the certificate exam from 10th grade. The female student set a goal of keeping an average score of 9,4 over the years. I also took the IELTS test and scored 8.5, SAT 1590/1600. To make her application more competitive and have a foundation of economic knowledge, Nhi self-study three AP subjects (advanced subjects in the US) including Microeconomics, Macroeconomics and Statistics, and all achieved maximum scores. 5/5.
Female students also participate in the CoronaNet project on economic policies during and after the Covid-19 epidemic, a collaboration between professors from Yale University, New York University and the Technical University of Munich. My task is to collect and analyze information about economic policy. In addition, Nhi also participated in a survey on social enterprises with doctoral students at Peking University.
Besides academics, female students sign up for clubs at school to experience, but focus most on the environmental club because it is related to sustainable economic development - the field of study she wants to pursue. Nhi has organized many propaganda activities, provided knowledge, and collected batteries and paper.
Cat Nhi and friends from Le Quy Dong High School for the Gifted, Da Nang. Photo: Provided by the character
As Nhi's mentor, Nguyen Thi Anh Tuyet, a student at Minerva University, impressed her with her hard work, intelligence and self-discipline. Tuyet commented that the strength of Nhi's profile is the harmony between outstanding academic achievements with extracurricular activities related to passion, social contributions and demonstration of high leadership ability.
Knowing that Nhi won a scholarship, Ms. Le Thi Anh Tuyen was proud of her student. Ms. Tuyen is Nhi's 11th grade homeroom teacher and is also the person who wrote the letter of introduction for her.
According to Ms. Tuyen, Nhi is always at the top of her class in terms of academic achievements, good at English and natural subjects. The female student won first prize in the city's excellent student competition in Physics, and twice won third prize in English at the Olympic competition in the Coastal and Northern Delta regions. Recently, I won first prize in the city in English.
“Nhi is a person who has a plan and knows clearly what needs to be done to achieve her goals. She is very deserving,” Ms. Tuyen said.
Next August, Nhi will go to the US to study. From her experience, Nhi believes that if they decide to study abroad, candidates need to be proactive in everything, review for the SAT as soon as possible, study more AP subjects and be able to take the IELTS test at the end of 8th grade.
Dawn
