Vietnamese twin sisters, 19, receive $680,000 scholarships from US university

By Phuong Anh March 5, 2025 | 03:09 pm PT

Le Quynh Huong (L) and her twin sister Le Quynh Anh in their high school graduation day. Photo provided by Anh and Huong

Twin sisters Le Quynh Anh and Le Quynh Huong from Ho Chi Minh City have been awarded scholarships totaling $680,000 to study computer science at the University of Richmond in the U.S.

Each sister received a $340,000 offer from the school, which is ranked 22nd among U.S. liberal arts colleges by U.S. News & World Report.

They learned of their admissions and scholarship offers on Feb. 22. Huong woke first to check her emails, then immediately shared the news with Anh.

"I was congratulated by the school as well, same as Huong. We were so happy and broke the news to our parents," Anh said.

According to the University of Richmond, the twins' applications were selected from a pool of around 13,000, with only 100 students advancing to the final interview round. If they accept the offers, they will begin studying at Richmond in the fall.

The 19-year-old twins' father is a computer science engineer, which motivated them to explore programming from an early age. In eighth grade, they began developing games using the Scratch programming language, creating one where a cat moved back and forth across the screen. They later learned additional programming languages, including Python and C++, and participated in hackathons and robotics competitions. Notably, they won a silver medal at the 2023 World Robot Olympiad in Panama.

While in high school in HCMC, both girls set their sights on studying computer science in the U.S. They scored above 1,550 on the SAT and 8.5 on the IELTS, and they also prepared for Advanced Placement (AP) exams to strengthen their scholarship applications.

Last year, the sisters applied to around 10 U.S. universities, including several Ivy League institutions, but were only shortlisted for some of their choices. Determined, they reapplied to 20 schools this admission cycle, submitting a research project and an internship certificate. Their study, guided by a Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine professor, focused on using AI to categorize medicinal ingredients.

Tran Anh Khoa, a researcher at Peking University who has worked with the sisters, described them as passionate about technology with clear goals from the outset. Huong is interested in exploring computer science applications in linguistics, while Anh plans to focus on medical technology.