Chengdu computer game designer bags Stanford University scholarship
Global Times | 2014-2-18 22:28:03
By Global Times </p>
<p>A teenage computing prodigy from Chengdu, Sichuan Province, has won a 250,000 yuan ($42,000) scholarship to Stanford University.</p>
<p>As a gold medalist at the National Olympiad in Informatics (NOI) in 2013, Li Lingxiao, now 18, had a guaranteed place at Tsinghua University, but decided instead to study abroad. </p>
<p>Li told local media he had dreamed of studying at Stanford since junior high school when he devoured a computer book by a Stanford University professor. </p>
<p>“The chance was small,” Li said. “But this situation inspired my instinct for adventure and challenge.”</p>
<p>Li had always been dedicated to studying science, Li’s teacher Liu Yadong told the Global Times. </p>
<p>“He studied hard while taking part in the NOI but he kept a definite aim of studying abroad,” Liu said.</p>
<p>When not studying for Stanford last year, Li founded a studio for computer games development with a friend, where he worked 10 hours a day after graduating from Chengdu No.7 High School. </p>
<p>Li’s father Li Tong, a newspaper editor, told West China City Daily he fully supported all five of his son’s controversial decisions: playing computer games at an early age, abandoning the prestigious NOI contest, not taking the Chinese college entrance exam, founding a games workshop and taking a year off to study for US college tests.</p>
<p>“He has a strong ability to control himself,” Li Tong told the Chengdu-based newspaper. “He clearly knew why he played the game.”</p>
<p>Li Lingxiao was also admitted to the University of California, Berkeley, but without a scholarship. He got 115 points in the Test Of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) and 2,240 points in the Scholastic Assessment Test (SAT).