Brandon Tong Wins Scholar of Scholars
Brandon Tong walks up to the podium to receive an award. Tong was this years Scholar of Scholars with a 4.9 gpa. Tong was also nominated for Stallion of the Year.
June 4, 2019
Brandon Tong has recently received the Scholar of Scholars award, and is excited to continue his academic future at Yale university next year.
Tong’s high school career has not been easy, yet he has still managed to maintain an unweighted 4.0 GPA every semester.
For the most part, like throughout the year, I’ve never really believed I was going to get it. I wanted to focus and colleges and stuff. It was really cool that I got it, but at the same time it was never something I was working toward. — Brandon Tong
He has taken 13 AP classes, “ 2 sophomore year, 6 junior year, and 5 this year” Tong said. In terms of his workload, he says for “ some of them it’s hard, and for some of them it isn’t that hard. Some AP’s have a lot more work than others, like AP Euro. It’s definitely a lot more work than AP Spanish. The workload can be very different.”
“The hardest class I have taken AP Lit, because of the quizzes. I don’t really memorize the books, so the quizzes in that class are really hard” Tong said.
“I feel like a regular classes would have been too easy. It wouldn’t have been as much of a challenge, so it would’ve been boring” Tong said.
“ I have definitely gotten C’s on tests” Tong said. Although he is no stranger to low test grades, but his performance recorded on his transcript is immaculate.
Tong say he studies maybe “ thirty minutes to no time at all. I don’t really study that much.” He believes that “If you pay attention class, it isn’t very much trouble.”
Tong had studied very avidly in both freshman and sophomore year, and learned these skills in junior year.
“ I am planning to go to Yale University this fall, and that’ll be pretty cool. Definitely a new experience” Tong said. “ I plan to study chemical engineering.”
In regards of his life after college, he has a couple ideas. “ I would really love to work in agriculture, or the food industry for sure. They also have chemical engineering positions at NASA, which would also be super cool.”
Even though he had an extreme workload and perfect transcript, he had never expected to win this award in high school. “It was kind of a surprise. Once they called me out to let me know, I knew what it was for. I don’t really get called out much for other reasons.”
“For the most part, like throughout the year, I’ve never really believed I was going to get it. I knew I had a shot, but it wasn’t really important to me. I wanted to focus and colleges and stuff. It was really cool that I got it, but at the same time it was never something I was working toward” Tong said.
Tong will accept his award Thursday at senior awards, on May 23. He is looking forward to continuing his scholarly ambitions at Yale, and is excited to take what he has learned at SJHHS with him after graduation on June 6.
