Tran Thuan Hieu, a 12th-grade student specializing in Informatics at Hanoi - Amsterdam High School for the Gifted, has not only been admitted to the University of Chicago but has also secured a full scholarship worth VND12 billion (approximately US$492,000).

Speaking with VietNamNet, Hieu said he still feels overwhelmed with emotion after receiving the scholarship offer from one of the top universities in the US.

“When I opened the admission letter, I was shaking with excitement when I realized I had been accepted. When I read about the scholarship amount, I was even more surprised and jumped up in my room. My mother, who was sitting beside me, burst into tears of joy,” Hieu recalled.

The University of Chicago ranks among the top six universities in the US and top 13 worldwide, according to QS rankings. In addition to Chicago, Hieu was also admitted to several other public universities in the US.

Hieu believes the profile that helped him earn the scholarship was not built with the sole goal of applying to study abroad but emerged naturally through years of learning and self-discovery.

“If my profile only had good grades or typical awards, it would just look like another academically strong Asian student. I don’t think that would have been distinctive enough to win a full scholarship,” he said.

“All the projects and extracurricular activities I participated in were not done with the intention of using them later for college applications. I simply pursued them because I genuinely enjoyed them.”

Nearly 300 essay drafts

To reach this milestone, Hieu wrote numerous application essays, sometimes staying up through the night.

Ideas constantly came to his mind, and whenever a better one appeared, he was willing to start again from scratch. In total, he wrote nearly 300 essay drafts, although about 90 percent were eventually discarded.

The final essay he submitted, Hieu said, was the one that felt the most authentic and inspiring. He chose to write honestly, incorporating elements of critical thinking and unconventional perspectives.

“I didn’t try to guess what the university wanted to hear. I simply wrote what I truly thought. Two months after submitting it, when I reread the essay, I still felt it reflected who I really am,” he said.

Hieu’s father, Tran Doanh Tuyen, understands clearly how much effort his son invested to achieve this result.

“There were nights when he stayed up writing essays. He kept writing and deleting, then writing again. Sometimes he was so tired that he just stared at the screen for a while before lowering his head and continuing,” Tuyen said.

The writing process also taught Hieu valuable lessons.

“At first, I wrote my essays in Vietnamese and then translated them into English. But later I realized that approach was not effective. When I started writing directly in English, the essays felt more natural and aligned with my thinking, and people evaluated them much more positively,” he explained.

Hieu’s home is located quite far from school, meaning he travels around 40km each day for the round trip. Nevertheless, regardless of heat or cold, he wakes up at 5:30am every morning to get to class.

“After school, there were days when he attended extra classes or continued working on projects and only returned home at around 11pm. Many nights, after the whole family had gone to bed, the light in his room was still on,” his father recalled.

Hieu believes learning is truly effective only when one feels genuinely interested and inspired.

For his projects, he pursued them out of passion, maintaining them consistently over a long period and seeing tangible results.

His initiatives focused on supporting children with disabilities, including applying AI to recognize sign language and teaching coding to hearing-impaired children.

“The happiest moment for me was returning to the center months later and seeing the children still remember me and run over to greet me. It made me happy to know that my efforts and dedication left a positive impression,” Hieu said.

His father still remembers the many scars on his son’s arms from using saws and chisels to craft handmade gifts for children at a center for disabled youth.

Outstanding academic achievements

Hieu’s academic record is equally impressive.

In 2025, he won the Vietnam Artificial Intelligence Championship and second prize at the Vietnam Artificial Intelligence Olympiad, along with first prize at the National Youth Informatics Contest.

He also earned third prize in the national excellent student competition in Informatics for two consecutive years in grades 11 and 12.

During the first semester of grade 12, his grade point average reached 9.8. Hieu also scored 1570 on the SAT on his first attempt.

Most recently, he further distinguished himself by winning a silver medal at the International Artificial Intelligence Olympiad in 2026.

Hieu said he chose the US as his study destination because it is a dynamic and highly developed country that offers diverse opportunities for exploration.

According to his plan, he will depart for the US around August. In the meantime, he is focusing on completing his high school program while preparing additional skills for the journey of living independently.

Cooking, however, is one skill he already feels confident about.

As the eldest child in a family with four siblings, Hieu says he has learned patience and is not afraid to try different tasks.

“Taking care of my younger siblings has made me more capable and taught me how to handle household chores,” he said with a smile.

At the University of Chicago, students are not required to choose a major in their first year. For now, Hieu is interested in studying fields that combine economics and artificial intelligence.

Thanh Hung