18-year-old Vietnamese female student wins 4.7 billion VND scholarship from top US girls' school

The pretty girl Trinh Mai Chi excellently won a scholarship worth 213,000 USD for 4 years (4.7 billion VND) from the prestigious liberal arts university Wellesley College (USA). Notably, this is a women's school with the mission of providing top education for future women who will change the world.

Realizing that the United States is a country with an ideal education system, Mai Chi is determined to win a university scholarship after graduating from high school.

Determination and effort to act

Mai Chi entered grade 10 of German major at Foreign Language High School - VNU Hanoi with her parents' intention of studying abroad in Germany after graduating from high school.

However, after one semester, while accidentally learning about studying abroad in the US, Chi realized that it was a country with a leading advanced education system, so she decided to find a scholarship to study in this country.

In the second semester of 10th grade, Chi started studying for the TOEFL test and only got acquainted with the SAT in the summer. Still studying German until the end of high school, Mai Chi maintained good academic performance in class with a high average score (9.4 - 9.5 points) and conquered American standardized tests to prepare for applying to American universities.

Passionate about literature and writing, Mai Chi has been an active writer in the content department of the Foreign Language Specialized Magazine - CNN Zoom since grade 10 and has been with Zoom for 2 years (2013-2015), writing articles for regular issues as well as major school anniversary magazines. She also holds the position of Head of the Information Department of the Youth Union Executive Committee of the Foreign Language Specialized High School for the 2014-2015 term.

Outside of school hours, the pretty female student devotes much of her enthusiasm to volunteer activities and extracurricular activities to protect the environment and for a greener planet.

Mai Chi said that when she entered the Foreign Language High School, she had the opportunity to join the charity club - CNN Shine and accompany the club in teaching foreign languages ​​to children with developmental delays at a kindergarten.

Not being a very active person in extracurricular activities, Mai Chi mostly participates in community activities and projects that she finds most interesting and meaningful.

“The Water Revol project to install simple water filters to provide clean water to the people of Xom Noi along the Red River was the first volunteer activity I participated in, and it was an experience that truly ignited my passion for social projects to help the community,” Chi shared.

This meaningful project helped Chi's team win First Prize in the environmental exhibition "Chance and Change 2014" of Water Wise Vietnam.

Mai Chi also attended the Global Youth Summit 2015 to find solutions for energy saving and won a Bronze Medal for the project “Water light-bulb” there.

Chi confided: “I think the most important thing is to understand yourself, focus on your strengths or interests to turn them into unique features or strengths of your profile. Don't pay too much attention to what the crowd is doing because sometimes what the crowd is doing is not suitable for you and is not necessarily the best thing.

As for extracurricular activities, nowadays there is no shortage of students with extremely thick and impressive extracurricular activity records. I am quite introverted and cannot do that.

But I focus on the areas that I like and am most capable of, and more importantly, after each activity, I reflect and draw as many lessons as possible. Therefore, with not too much extracurricular experience, I still have material to write many essays."

I participated in the Global Youth Summit 2015 to find solutions for energy saving and won a Bronze Medal for the project “Water light-bub”.

Know how to harness the power of difference

The main essay of the Vietnamese girl sent to the American university revolved around the preservation and development of cultural identity, more specifically the traditional cultural arts of Vietnam in the era of global integration with opportunities to learn and absorb from many other cultures to integrate and also the risks of losing identity and being "dissolved".

After completing her application, Mai Chi sent it to Wellesley College in the early application (ED) period with the intention of definitely studying there if accepted.

Her determination and efforts have helped the German major realize her dream of studying in the US. The top 3 university in the US that Mai Chi wanted to attend has awarded her a scholarship worth 54,000 USD/year for 4 years of study (worth 4.7 billion VND).

“Know how to take advantage of your differences” is one of the experiences of a Vietnamese girl to conquer a prestigious scholarship. “I majored in German so English is not my strong point, and I don’t know many friends or sources of information about studying in the US.

But on the contrary, knowing more than one foreign language is also an advantage, and learning German gave me the opportunity to exchange students at a high school in this country, giving me many valuable discoveries and insights for my main essay,” Chi said.

Explore and affirm feminism

Mai Chi said that she has not decided on a specific major yet and is taking advantage of the first two years to explore herself, trying out many different fields that she is interested in.

Giving students the opportunity to try out many different subjects and fields without having to decide on a major in the first two years is also a very special point of Liber Art universities, and is one of the important reasons why I chose the US as my destination.

In particular, Mai Chi School, which has been determined to conquer since its inception (in 1875), has been a university exclusively for women, operating with the mission of providing a top-notch education for future women who will change the world.

Notably, in the 19th century, when almost all other top universities only admitted men, Wellesley College pioneered the mission of affirming women's rights.

“What's more remarkable is that Wellesley remains one of the few schools in the United States that has remained faithful to this mission to this day (while others have become co-educational).

Growing up in a country influenced by the feudal ideology of male superiority and female inferiority (and in fact, it is still the case in many places around the world), my choice to apply, be accepted and study at Welleley is truly a journey of discovery and affirmation of my own value as a woman,” the 18-year-old Vietnamese girl affirmed.

Le Thu/According to Dantri