Sharing from Pham Minh Thu – Freshman (Business in Entertainment Media Technology) at New York University (NYU)

Any advice for students preparing to study in the U.S.?
Thu’s advice is to take time to understand yourself and identify your strengths. You need to know what you want the admissions committee to see and which aspects of yourself to highlight. The best timeline is to start participating in extracurricular activities in 10th grade, take exams like AP, SAT, and TOEFL in 11th grade, and focus on writing your essays in 12th grade.
Step one, Thu completed extracurricular activities starting in 10th grade to make her application more complete and to demonstrate to the admissions committee her passion for her chosen field and related activities. The extracurricular activities you choose should reflect who you are, not someone else. Don’t just jump into volunteer work because others are doing it – if you’re not truly passionate, it will show in your application; moreover, you won’t have any compelling ideas or material for your main essay or supplemental essays. If you clearly know what you like and want, you will naturally seek out and spend time on extracurricular activities related to the field you want to study, impressing the admissions committee. However, don’t forget other socially oriented extracurricular activities, as many schools want to see how you care about your community and society.
Step two, Thu herself started preparing for exams quite late, taking only one AP and preparing in a short amount of time. Therefore, her sincere advice is to focus on taking multiple AP exams and English proficiency tests in 11th grade. In the U.S., having many APs increases your chances of being accepted. Speaking of exams, Thu believes that success is partly due to luck, so it’s essential to start preparing early, so if the results are not as expected, you can retake the exams to achieve higher scores. Also, don’t schedule your exams too close to the application deadline. For example, Thu had a classmate who was very talented but waited until December, right before the I-20 submission deadline, to take the exam. The results were not as expected, and it was too late to do anything about it. Such results don’t reflect your true ability, which can affect your chances of getting into your dream school.

Regarding the essay, because Thu started preparing her essay very early, she didn’t have any difficulties and only took 1-2 weeks to choose a topic. Thu advises that you should have a notebook to jot down ideas that you will use to write your essay later. The timeline depends on each person’s ability, but ideally, you should start choosing a topic by the end of 11th grade and continue into the summer. Extracurricular activities and choosing the right ones that truly reflect who you are have a significant impact when writing your essay. The admissions committee reads many essays every day, so to stand out, you have to be true to yourself.

To achieve your dream, looking back on the preparation process a year ago, could you share your personal experience?
According to Thu, the most important thing is how you want to present yourself. You need to show the school who you are, and based on that, you prepare your application to reflect that. Thu’s passion is public speaking and debate, so starting from 10th grade, she participated in related competitions and organized programs such as the Congressional Debate Tournament, NKMUN Club, and Vietnam Model League of Nations. She also chaired the International Vietnam MUN Saigon conference. These activities were incorporated into the essays Thu wrote, illustrating her strengths. You shouldn’t participate in too many extracurricular activities to the point where you lose yourself and forget who you are. A memorable essay that the admissions committee remembers is more important than one that just lists what you’ve done. Once you’ve identified who you are and focused on the appropriate extracurricular activities, you also need to balance your time between studying in class and preparing for exams like the SAT and TOEFL. The 11th grade is quite important because the sooner you start preparing for exams, the better, and the sooner you participate in activities, the more you demonstrate your determination and passion for what you want to do.

These are the tips from Minh Thu for students preparing to study in the U.S. Hopefully, these shares will help you get into your dream school in the future.
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