As the first semester comes to an end, the journey for seniors also nears completion and college applications become a priority; however, Myriam Yao has stayed focused on school and on her future.

She currently has an impressive 4.42 GPA and has an extremely rigorous schedule. She is taking Morning Choir, AP English IV, AP Computer Science, AP Physics, Economics, AP US Government, Honors Chinese IV, and AP Calculus BC. Next semester she will take two religious studies classes in place of Economics and AP US Government. Myriam is also trilingual, speaking English, French, and Chinese.

Myriam, in addition to her difficult classes, is a part of the track team and cross country team. She is a member of the speech and debate team and frequently volunteers at the Oregon Humane Society.

To find out more about her study habits and her plan for the future, Myriam answered several questions about her life in and out of school.

How has your senior year been?

• My senior year has been going well. I like all of my classes, and I am having a lot of fun on the Speech and Debate team, although that’s not much of a surprise.

What kinds of study habits are successful for you?

• My studying strategies depend on the class, but I usually do best on tests when I start studying as soon as the test is announced. For language classes and social studies-related classes, notecards have saved my life many a time. For math and science-related classes, I do best when I complete a lot of practice problems.

What do you enjoy doing in your free time?

• In my free time, I enjoy reading, writing stories, running, and watching the Green brothers’ YouTube channels (SciShow, Crash Course, Vlogbrothers — they’re really good).

Do your extracurricular activities ever affect your grades?

• Extracurricular activities usually only affect my grades if I let them. I try to balance my schedule so that school always comes first, and if I have to miss school, I try to make sure to stay on top of things so that I don’t fall behind.

Did you start high school with all of these successful strategies or did you pick them up along the way?

• Having been homeschooled for a decent number of years before high school, I had no idea what to expect or which study strategies to adopt. I definitely had to slowly figure them out along the way, but I got a lot of help from friends and teachers.

What do you like to do on the weekends?

• On the weekends, if I have homework done, I love to spend the day at the library reading books and magazines.

How do you manage the stress of school and homework?

• To manage school and homework, I always try to make sure I get the smaller homework assignments done as soon as possible so that I can focus on projects and larger assignments stress-free. I also try to finish most of my homework on Fridays so that I can unwind over the weekend.

Do you think that GPA directly correlates with success later in life? In other words, do you maintain a high GPA as a standard for yourself or a standard for others to measure you by?

• I believe that my GPA mostly indicates how hard I am working. If I see that my grades are dropping, and I feel like I can do better, I will work to do better. Ultimately, however, I hope to leave school with a broadened mind and a drive to discover more, rather than just good scores. I try to steer away from working hard in school just for my GPA because in the future, only my own curiosity will bring me “success” as society defines it. So while my scores may act as a good guide to let me compare how I am doing and how I could be doing, I mostly only view them as something for colleges to measure me by.

What colleges are you looking at?

• Some of the colleges I am looking at include Boston College, Santa Clara University, Pomona College, University of Oregon’s Clark Honors College, Lewis and Clark College, Dartmouth College, and Stanford University.

In regard to your college choices, what is the order of your choices and why have you looked into these certain colleges?

• My top choice school is Boston College; not only is it a great school, but it also has a beautiful campus in a city full of opportunities for college students. I looked into Pomona, which is probably my second choice, because of the quality of the Claremont schools. After those two schools, however, I have not placed my colleges in any specific order. Santa Clara became one of my choices because I heard a lot of good things about its programs from my counselor and friends, and because of its beautiful campus. My dad encouraged me to apply to Dartmouth because of its good research programs. My counselor encouraged me to apply to Stanford because — well, it’s Stanford. I am also applying to the University of Oregon’s Clark Honors College because of the quality of education as well as because I am eligible for a scholarship that would guarantee me research grants. I am applying to Lewis and Clark because the summer after sophomore year, I did a Speech and Debate camp there, and I won a small tournament, the prize for which is a guaranteed scholarship to the school.

Where do you see yourself five years from now?

• Five years from now, I’m hoping that I’ll be doing research for a good institute somewhere. Although I’m not sure what exactly I want to research, currently I’m gravitating toward something related to biomedicine.

Is there anything you want others to know about you?

• Some cool things about me include that I speak French at home, that I was homeschooled from fourth grade until the end of eighth grade, and that I am an avid Doctor Who fan.