Nước chấm: Vietnamese teenager accepted into 14 US colleges, including three Ivy Leagues: Penn, Cornell and Dartmouth
My knee-jerk reaction to this story was to channel my inner high-expectation Asian dad voice and exclaim, why not Harvard or Yale?? Penn, Cornell and Dartmouth might be Ivies, but they’re the Ivies that people have to Google to refresh their awareness that they’re also in the Ivy League, along with Brown. Asian dads only know Harvard, Yale and Princeton, in that order, and a failure to be accepted into any of those schools, with a full ride is nothing short of colossal disappointment.
But in all seriousness, this is a TRYHARD that gives me a happy feeling. As an actual dad to half-Asian daughters, it brings me joy to read a story about an Asian girl who can TRYHARD with the best of all the TRYHARDs in the world, and get accepted into a fuckton of American schools.
Amused, I am to see that among the Ivies, she was also accepted into Northwestern, North Carolina, and of course, Georgia Tech. Perhaps there’s more to Georgia Tech’s academic pedigree than I care to give them credit for, behind my shit-colored glasses that I see them for their athletics first.
What I like about Asian news outlets is that they’re not as shy and mum about talking about money, and as a result, it’s impressive to see that among the acceptances, Dartmouth was also willing to pony up $280K for this TRYHARD’s admittance; according to Google, over four years, that could cover at least tuition, leaving her on the hook probably for just housing, food and books, which means she’ll only be responsible for $80 billion.
But in the true spirit of TRYHARD culture, this girl’s resume is pretty damn deep; a 1560 SAT, multitude of awards, accolades, self-taught English, spoken at a gifted level, and multiple independent study/research projects, as well as being a self-taught musician. This is the kind of daughter that Asian dads probably dream about.
All the same, glad to see some girls of Asian blood finally get on the board in the game of TRYHARDing. After keeping tabs on the SZN, there’ve been some patterns that seem a little too obvious, and with Ivy Day in play, it’s nice to see the American dream of DEI finally spreading the wealth a little bit in TRYHARDSZN.
