Vietnamese teen's keyboard obsession led him to Silicon Valley's most selective university

A Vietnamese student who taught himself to code after years spent taking computer keyboards apart and rebuilding them has won admission to Stanford University, the most selective university in Silicon Valley.

Phung Quang Thang, a 12th-grader at Le Hong Phong High School for the Gifted in Ho Chi Minh City, learned of his acceptance in late March.

Stanford sits in the heart of Silicon Valley and ranks among the most selective universities in the U.S., admitting under 4% of applicants in each of the past three years. The class it enrolled in 2024 set a school record, at 3.6%.

It placed third in the 2026 QS World University Rankings and second for computer science, behind only the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Phung Quang Thang, a high school student in Ho Chi Minh City. Photo courtesy of Thang

Thang's route to one of the world's most competitive programs started with a childhood fascination with keyboards. He would dismantle them to see how they worked, then rearrange and decorate the parts, a habit that earned him the nickname "avid keyboard modifier" among classmates.

"I really love keyboards. Sometimes you might catch me still fiddling with one at 2 a.m.," he wrote in a supplemental Stanford essay introducing himself to a future roommate.

Tinkering turned into coding, and coding into a goal. Growing up in Khanh Hoa, a central Vietnamese province repeatedly hit by storms and floods, Thang set out to build technology that could blunt the damage.

For his main application essay, he described designing a sensor-triggered flood barrier that inflates with water until it is heavy enough to hold back a surge.

His first prototype failed when mud and leaves jammed the sensors. He rebuilt it with different sensors, tested it under varied conditions, and installed a working version at a local home.

He paired it with software that pushes weather alerts to residents, warns of storms and floods, and maps evacuation routes.

Thang figured his grades alone would not set him apart, so he leaned on the essays and his research.

The numbers were still strong: a 9.5 out of 10 GPA over three years, a 1550 SAT, an 8.0 IELTS and a perfect 5 on the AP Computer Science A exam.

He holds a gold medal from the Hong Kong International Computing Olympiad and a first prize at Ho Chi Minh City's Youth Informatics Contest.

His research also includes a project that uses deep learning on satellite imagery to predict deforestation in Vietnam, which took first prize at this year's city science and engineering fair.

Stanford was not his only offer. He was also accepted to the University of Texas in Austin, the University of Florida, the University of Rochester, the University of Melbourne and the University of Sydney, with Rochester putting up his largest package, more than US$200,000 over four years.

Vu Thi Hong Hanh, his homeroom teacher, said Thang balanced research and coursework without letting either slip. "With this ability, I believe he'll go far in his research journey," she said.

His one regret was cramming the SAT and IELTS close to his deadline. "That period was quite stressful. If I could go back, I'd prepare earlier," he said.

Thang starts at Stanford in September, where he plans to keep refining his flood system and push further into work that fuses computer science with environmental science.