The journey of a female student from Phan School to Tsinghua University.

A long history of achievements

Thai Nhat Linh is not an unfamiliar name because three years ago, while studying at Dang Thai Mai Secondary School, she was the top scorer in the provincial entrance exam for 10th grade with 28.5 points and was admitted to the specialized English class.Phan Boi Chau Specialized High School.

After three years at school, in a class with "too many brilliant students," Linh admitted that her abilities were still quite limited. Therefore, even though she participated in the selection process to join the national team, Linh didn't have high expectations. Linh's highest achievement at Phan High School in her senior year was winning second prize in the provincial English competition for gifted students.

In addition, Linh strives to excel in all subjects and aims to obtain international certifications.

Speaking about taking international certification exams, Linh said she was a bit behind her peers because she only started preparing at the beginning of 12th grade. However, the exam didn't seem too difficult for Linh because she had a fairly solid foundation. Therefore, instead of attending too many extra classes, Linh mainly reviewed her knowledge and practiced more exam questions to hone her test-taking skills.

Speaking further about her IELTS score of 8.0, Linh said: "I already had an IELTS score of 7.0 since 9th grade, so for my second attempt, I had learned from experience. English is my main subject at school, so during the course, we practiced many test-taking skills, listening, speaking, and essay writing quite a lot. I also learned other knowledge on my own through books, online resources, and frequent listening and speaking practice, so I'm quite proficient."

In the first semester of 12th grade, after about two months of focused and systematic exam preparation, Linh achieved a SAT score of 1560/1600, placing her in the top 1% worldwide. Previously, Linh mentioned that she started researching the exam in 10th grade, but in her first practice test, she only scored nearly 1400 points – "a rather shocking score for myself."

Linh took the SAT for the second time, in the second semester of 11th grade. However, despite being quite confident, her second attempt resulted in a low score of only 1480 points – 30 points lower than her target. Linh had a strong math foundation, so she found it easy, scoring 770/800. But the reading and writing section of the SAT was too difficult, with many in-depth, scientific passages. In her second attempt, her English score was only 710/800 points.

From her first two attempts, Linh learned from her mistakes. Therefore, before taking the third exam at the end of the first semester of 12th grade, Linh registered for a short-term online exam preparation course for nearly two months. This time, she had access to a fairly rich source of practice questions, which helped her gain more knowledge and skills to answer the questions.

Besides these two important exams, in the first semester of 12th grade, Linh also took the Chinese language proficiency test and achieved good results in semesters 5/6. This is a subject Linh had been familiar with since middle school and continued to study until high school. Learning Chinese wasn't too difficult for Linh because she has a talent for languages ​​and had also self-studied several other languages. Linh's Chinese learning process mainly involved movies, music, and she built her vocabulary by watching movies with subtitles or listening to foreign news broadcasts.

Conquering a school ranked in the top 20 in the world.

As a student specializing in languages, Thai Nhat Linh had been thinking about studying abroad since 10th grade. By 12th grade, after acquiring a number of certificates, Linh began researching and applying. Of the three universities Linh applied to, Bocconi University (Italy) was the first to announce her results, and she was awarded a 100% scholarship.

The idea of ​​applying to Tsinghua University (China) was sparked after Linh completed her Chinese language proficiency certificate in the 5th semester and began submitting her application in February 2025. During the application process, Linh encountered many difficulties because the information available for applying to Tsinghua University was not as readily available as for universities in other countries. Meanwhile, according to the university's requirements, in addition to academic transcripts and international certificates, applicants also had to submit a study plan and a personal video.

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Before enrolling, I only knew about Tsinghua University through movies, books, and social media. Therefore, in my essay, I shared that I was very impressed with the university's size, beauty, and the many talented students.

In addition, she expressed her desire to study at the Institute of Economics, Management and Finance, specializing in Management Information Systems, a relatively new field of study, to have opportunities for future self-development. In her introductory video, she chose her family and Phan Boi Chau High School for the Gifted as the setting and had a friend film it. She used both English and Chinese in the video.

Thai Nhat Linh

After submitting her application, Linh waited nearly two months for an interview notification from Tsinghua University. During that time, Linh seemed to keep her plans to herself and her family. To ensure objectivity, one day before the interview, Linh received a request from the university to prepare a location and cameras to prevent cheating. Linh received questions from three Tsinghua University professors in both English and Chinese. From the very first question, Linh struggled because the professors asked her about the Chinese film industry, and she had to use all her limited knowledge to present her findings. The professors also asked Linh to restate her study plan and quickly solve a math problem (without using a calculator). Fortunately, the math problem wasn't too difficult, and Linh almost got the answer right without much calculation.

Despite her best efforts, Linh admitted that after completing the interview, she was worried about not succeeding because Tsinghua University is one of the top universities in China, and the acceptance rate is not high. That's why, when she received the acceptance letter, Linh was overwhelmed with joy and only then did she begin to share the news with her family and some close friends. Along with the acceptance notification, Linh also received a scholarship covering 50% of her tuition fees for her studies at the university.

At the time she received her university acceptance letter, Linh also began her high school graduation exam. Although not under too much pressure, Linh still dedicated a lot of effort to this exam so as not to disappoint her teachers and family, and she finished with a fairly high score of 36.25 points.

Having achieved these initial successes, Linh is grateful to her parents, who, despite being ordinary civil servants, always show her and her siblings the utmost care and support in her studies and life. Linh also thanks her teachers, the entire class of 12C5, and Phan Boi Chau Specialized High School. From this school, Linh has been nurtured with knowledge, confidence, and the courage to express herself, build her dreams, and pursue her aspirations…