Nghe An male student shares secret to hunting for scholarships to study abroad

Learn English for passion

Le Khanh Tung - a student of class 12A7 is a quite outstanding student at Vinh University High School for the Gifted, especially after he won the third prize in the National Excellent Student Contest in English at school in grade 11. In the past two years, Tung has also been the student with the highest achievement in English in this exam.

English was also Tung's best advantage during his high school years. However, Tung only started to really study English seriously in the last months of grade 9 and made great progress from grade 10.

Le Khanh Tung was a national excellent student in grade 11 and had the highest achievement of Vinh University High School for the Gifted in this exam. Photo: NVCC

Talking about this, Tung said: When I first entered junior high school, I, like many other male students, loved to play, did not study hard and especially liked to play games, which made my parents very upset. It was not until grade 9, when the transfer exam was approaching, that I realized that I was wasting too much time and had not really done anything to please my parents. From then on, I started to work hard, quit playing games and focused on studying. Because my academic ability was also average, I was admitted to the English major class - Vinh University High School for the Gifted with quite modest results.

Tung's "turning point" was when he entered 10th grade and participated in a project that was selected to participate in the National Science and Technology Competition. The project with the topic "360-degree security monitoring system using solar energy" did not win any prizes, but the process of implementing the project and searching for documents forced Tung and his classmates to invest a lot.

In particular, the fact that most of the documents to develop the project had to be referenced from abroad forced Tung to consciously "upgrade" his English. After finishing the project, Tung had a special passion for English and he devoted a lot of effort to this subject. That is also the reason why, despite his modest starting point, after just over a year of accelerated learning, most of which was online learning, Tung still excelled and won third prize at the National English Competition for Excellent Students in Grade 11.

Sharing more about the secret to learning English, Tung said: I really like watching movies and watching clips from foreign countries. Learning English in this way helps me practice my vocabulary and pronunciation like foreigners. Later, when I joined the team, I spent more time studying grammar and received a lot of support from my teachers.

Tung also has another hobby of reading books and "plowing" foreign stories has given Tung quite good reading and writing skills. That is why, since grade 11, when taking the IELTS exam, Tung scored 9 points in the reading section and achieved a fairly high score of 8.0. In essay writing, Tung also did not encounter too much difficulty because he read a lot, studied a lot and remembered quite well the articles he had read. This male student also said: I read so much that later when taking the IELTS exam or the national exam, I felt very familiar with any essay and completed the exam quite easily.

"Hunting" for scholarships just to challenge yourself

With an IELTS score of 8.0 and a third prize in the national English exam, Tung did not seem to be under too much pressure to get into universities. Therefore, from the end of grade 11, after basically completing his goals, Tung began to research and "hunt" for scholarships at foreign universities.

After more than 1 year of perseverance, according to Tung's statistics, dozens of universities have invited him to study or granted him scholarships with a scholarship value of more than 26 billion VND for one academic year and over 80 billion VND for 4 academic years. Among these are many prestigious universities ranked quite highly in the UK and the US.

Le Khanh Tung started applying for foreign scholarships at the end of grade 11 and received invitations from more than 100 schools, of which about 70 schools offered scholarships. Photo: My Ha

Before, to have this "huge" list, Tung said he encountered a lot of confusion when applying for a scholarship for the first time. Later, through the help of seniors, Tung learned about the A2C website and from there, many members on this website shared information and experiences to apply for scholarships. During the application process, in addition to preparing personal information, Tung also received support from his teachers and he was very happy when the teachers agreed to write letters of recommendation.

List of schools where Le Khanh Tung won scholarships.

Sharing about this, Tung said: “All the universities I applied for scholarships to required candidates to have a letter of recommendation. I went to the school principal, my homeroom teacher and my English teacher at Vinh University and received sincere help from the teachers. Receiving the letter of recommendation from the teachers also surprised me because I did not think that I would receive such favor and attention from the teachers.”

Invitations from foreign universities that Tung has received. Photo: My Ha

Tung is a very talented person and I am ready to support his decision to pursue the path of education because I firmly believe that with his current qualities, he will be a good teacher in the future...

Excerpt from the letter of recommendation from teacher Pham Xuan Chung - Principal of Vinh University High School for the Gifted.

To receive the scholarship, Tung also said that at each school he had to write an essay to state his purpose and reason for applying to the school. The common point of all the schools that Tung applied to was that he applied to the "English language" major.

The difference is that depending on each school, I will have my own essay. During the writing process, Tung also shared about the projects that he and his friends participated in, such as teaching English to children at SOS Children's Village Vinh and the idea of ​​creating a sustainable self-learning environment in the village by supporting talented students in the village to become "mini teachers". Later, these students directly taught their friends in the village to make teaching more effective.

Tung also said that he likes movies and really likes stories about the journey of people overcoming difficulties and then they will draw on their own experiences to help others. Thinking about himself, Tung always has a "modest" dream of using his talent in English to bring learning and knowledge to everyone.

Desire to be a teacher

Tung is the eldest son and was born into a well-off family. With a favorable starting point, studying abroad for him was probably not too difficult and he was always supported by his family, even when he chose to study abroad on his own. However, Tung personally thinks differently because for him, spending more than a year to prepare documents and apply for scholarships is a way for him to "challenge himself and his abilities".

At this time, Tung also received the admission results from three domestic universities, namely Foreign Trade University, National Economics University and Foreign Language University - Hanoi National University. Surprisingly, instead of choosing a university abroad, Tung did not hesitate to choose Foreign Language University and enrolled in English Pedagogy to fulfill his dream of becoming a teacher. This male student also said: Maybe, my dream is quite different, but I am happy to teach students and share my knowledge of English with everyone...

Le Khanh Tung loves English and dreams of becoming a teacher. Photo: My Ha

In the list of schools where Tung received scholarships, the school with the highest scholarship is Lycoming College with a scholarship value of 86%. In addition, there are some schools with scholarship levels from 70% to 78% such as Widener University, Susquehananna University...

On the journey to realize his ambition, Tung has also started to carry out his own projects such as writing a blog to share his experiences of learning English, IELTS test taking experience, and scholarship hunting experience. His page has over 10,000 followers. In the future, Tung also cherishes the idea of ​​continuing to take the IELTS test to achieve higher results, creating a good foundation to be able to provide maximum support to learners, and will register for foreign courses after completing his university program to improve his level...

At 18 years old, for Le Khanh Tung, the journey has just begun and is full of aspirations!