Vietnamese students Ho Ngoc Nhi has won great admiration for passing the entrance exams of six prestigious US universities known as Yale, MIT, Harvard, Brown, UCLA, and UC Berkeley.

Nhi’s outstanding record was acknowledged by Santa Monica High School’s newspaper in June 2012. She is studying biomedicine at Harvard University because it is located near her residence in Boston from where she can easily get to biomedical engineering research institutes.

Her favourite subject is biology, she says. Since her family moved to the US in 2002, she has managed to enter the 2011 USA Biology Olympiad as one of the top 20 candidates. She also participated in a number of training courses abroad to broaden her knowledge and promote cultural exchanges.

Nhi is very active in charity work to help the poor, particularly underprivileged children. She is now head of a charity organization in support for African children.

Nhi’s studying at Harvard University is the pride and joy of her family and friends. “I have owed my academic record to the full support of my family members, teachers, and friends,” she says.

The land of Vietnam remains so dear to her heart that she has grasped every opportunity to visit her relatives back home, apart from attending her elder sister’s wedding.

Nhi says there are some 100 Vietnamese studying at Harvard University. They are proud of the homeland and its traditional culture and customs. “Tertiary education at Harvard University requires studiousness and diligence,” she says, “I will spare no effort in study as there’s a long way to go before becoming a doctor of pediatrics as I wish.”