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He was the top science student in the Beijing college entrance examination in 2010, and was called a leader-level talent by the professors of the National People's University of China.
In order to apply for a prestigious American school, he gave up his qualification for admission to Peking University, but was rejected by 11 American schools.
Domestic netizens once called it "high scores and low ability", "admiring foreigners", and even "a failed case of exam-oriented education".
In the case of not being favored by everyone, how is Li Taibo doing now?
A prodigy with superior intelligence
In 1992, Li Taibo was born in Beijing to a scholarly family, and his parents were high-level intellectuals.
They named their children from the eighth chapter of the Analects, which shows the mentality of hoping for their son to become a dragon.
Because Taber was the founding monarch of the ancient state of Wu, the Analects say that his virtues were so high that the people could not find a better word of praise.
In fact, Li Taibo is indeed as good as his parents expected.
Under the guidance of his parents, he had many hobbies since he was a child, such as painting, playing the piano, and listening to Mozart's music.
Even, he composed a song himself and gave it to his father as a ringtone for his mobile phone.
However, his interest in the arts did not lead him to the liberal arts, and his brilliant mind made him equally comfortable in the sciences.
From being admitted to Fengtai No. 1 Primary School in Beijing to being admitted to the High School Affiliated to Renmin University in Chinese, Li Taibo has always been "someone else's child" when he was a child.
Subsequently, he studied in junior high school and high school in the High School Affiliated to the National People's Congress, because his grades were in the top ten in the whole grade every year, and he also had a wide range of talents, so he quickly attracted the attention of many senior teachers.
By the time he reached high school, he was still at the top of his academic performance and often participated in various extracurricular activities to improve his abilities.
For example, when he was in high school, he held various club activities, and Li Taibo was not only the president of the school's student council and grade level student union, but also the president of the Model United Nations club, and presided over a variety of student club activities and meetings.
Even Shen Xianzhang, a professor at Chinese University, did not hesitate to praise him, saying that he was a leader-level talent with morality, talent, and appearance.
It was rejected by 11 prestigious schools
What really made Li Taibo famous was that he won the top prize in science in Beijing in the 2010 college entrance examination.
At that time, Peking University had already noticed such an outstanding talent, and gave the qualification before the college entrance examination.
But in the face of easy success, he did not choose to reach out and pluck the results, but chose to refuse.
Such a choice directly shocked the world, and his own explanation was: "When I was eligible for the escort, I didn't have a clear plan for the future, and besides, I think young people should go through more challenges, and I have the confidence to accept them." ”
The challenges that Li Taber talked about, people saw next.
It turned out that he and his parents had already discussed that they would first apply for the top 20 universities in the world.
In order to prepare for these prestigious American schools, he read a lot of materials and carefully prepared application materials.
In the end, 11 well-known American universities, including Harvard, Yale, MIT, and Stanford, all entered his application list and sent application letters one by one.
However, soon, the news that "Beijing's top science student was rejected by 11 universities in the United States" appeared on the Internet.
For a time, there was a lot of discussion in the outside world, and doubts about Li Taibo and even the entire Chinese education were very loud.
At that time, there were endless voices comparing the pros and cons of exam-oriented education and elite education, and Li Taibo seemed to be pushed to the forefront.
People say that he is a typical example of high scores and low ability, and a case of failure under exam-oriented education.
Could it really be that Li Taibo is not good enough?
In fact, if you look closely at the relevant reports, you will find that there are a few key words mentioned in the body of the news.
Li Taibo did not simply apply to these 11 prestigious schools, but applied for a full scholarship to study in these prestigious schools.
The meaning is clear, I am not begging to go to your school, but I am worthy of you to admit me with a full scholarship.
However, the news media and the public clung to the word "refusal", as if directly pronouncing the death sentence of Li Taibo.
only saw that he got a high score in the exam and said that he was "imbecile", but the fact is that in addition to studying, Li Taibo surpassed many students from famous schools in terms of activity organization ability and comprehensive literacy.
Later, a student at Tsinghua University who was at the same time as him said that the group homework assigned by the teacher often required several people to work together to complete, and he himself could always complete it alone.
That's not to say he's so arrogant and withdrawn that he won't cooperate.
On the contrary, we said that he was the president of the student council and the Model United Nations, and he had a lively and cheerful personality and was good at organization and management.
In order to experience a variety of life and increase social experience, he has also actively participated in various volunteer activities and social practices.
Chonghui Feng
Although the outside world has constantly questioned Li Taibo, he also said that he once fell into the shadow of self-doubt.
But his life has always been smooth, and he did not collapse under this blow.
He reorganized the reasons why he was rejected by American universities, and applied for full scholarship admission to many universities in China again with full confidence.
The University of Hong Kong, the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Tsinghua University and other schools are all impressively listed.
In the end, Li Taibo was unsurprisingly admitted to Tsinghua University's Department of Physics majoring in electronics.
Although he eventually stayed in China to study at university, Li Taibo's desire to study abroad has always been abroad.
Many people may not understand, why do you have to go abroad to study, isn't this still admiring foreign countries?
Objectively speaking, there is indeed a gap between domestic famous universities such as Tsinghua University and Peking University compared with the world's top universities.
Secondly, the physics that Li Taibo specializes in is also a higher level of teaching and more cutting-edge research in major foreign universities.
Going abroad will give you better access to the latest technology and R&D in today's world.
This is also an important reason why American universities have been banning Chinese students from applying for their drone majors.
Even if you don't consider it from the perspective of academic majors, as a genius who is very likely to stand at the forefront of technology in the future, it is equally important to get in touch with and understand the level of science and technology teaching abroad in advance.
Therefore, in his sophomore year, Li Taibo applied for a full scholarship of 640,000 yuan from the University of Hong Kong again.
The purpose of studying at the University of Hong Kong is naturally to adapt to the national teaching mode in advance and prepare for studying abroad in the future.
Sure enough, in 2012, Li Taibo applied to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the United States and was admitted on a full scholarship.
This time, Li Taibo's deeds of getting out of the trough and returning to the top have not been widely reported in China.
And he himself immersed himself in his own academic research, devoting himself to the world of physics without distraction.
During this period, he also studied at Cambridge University in the United Kingdom as an exchange student.
Finally, after graduating from Tsinghua University, Li Taibo received an offer from the drone project team at Amazon's global headquarters.
There was a job with good prospects, and he was supposed to be hired.
But the U.S. soon designated it as a military program, requiring teams not to recruit foreigners.
In desperation, Lee decided to switch from physics to biomedical sciences and philosophy.
Such a huge shift in research direction has raised many questions, fearing that his research career will be ruined.
However, Lee soon applied for a full scholarship to graduate school at Johns Hopkins University.
During his three-year graduate career, he worked hard in a new field that he was unfamiliar with, and successfully obtained a master's degree.
In the fall of 2017, 26-year-old Li Taibo was full of ambition and successfully obtained the admission letter for a double doctorate degree in medicine and science from the university, which was only 10 in the United States that year.
In his first year of Ph.D., he published a second article in the internationally renowned journal Nature Methodology, which addressed an academic problem related to genomics.
Will you return to China in the future?
While studying for his Ph.D. at Johns Hopkins University, Lee still maintained his trademark smile since high school.
From this point, it is not difficult to see that although his life has occasional twists and turns, it is generally very smooth and successful.
The rejection by 11 prestigious schools did not leave a shadow on him, and in his words, he has to thank for this rejection.
Many people have been concerned about whether Li Taibo will return to China, but since he studied for a doctorate, there have been no relevant reports.
Although he himself has said that he is likely to come back after college in the United States, the truth is that the medical major he chooses has better employment prospects in the United States.
Of course, it doesn't matter if Taber Lee doesn't come back, because he didn't study physics during his Ph.D., and he won't become an expert in defense science in the United States in the future.
Therefore, from this aspect, it is naturally better for him to be able to return to China, and it is not a big deal if he does not return to China to live his own life.
Looking back on Li Taibo's road to success, he was rejected by 11 prestigious schools at the same time, and was ridiculed and criticized by many people in China, which is undoubtedly the biggest test he has experienced in his life.
If he hadn't withstood this blow in his smooth sailing life at that time, it would have been possible for him to be out of the crowd in the future.
Here, I also have to admire his own strength and self-confidence, he can achieve today's achievements, his own efforts and character are very important.
In our education and news media, it is always customary to look at life with a binary thinking.
Just as many parents and children are influenced by this kind of thinking, they feel that if they do not do well in the high school entrance examination, they will be finished, and if they can't get into the college entrance examination, they will be finished, so it has caused the tragedy of many students jumping off the building because of poor grades and scolding by their parents.
In fact, Lee Taeber tells us that rejection is never a terrible thing.
There are many people like him who have been rejected by prestigious schools, Ma Yun has been rejected 10 times to Harvard University, and Wang Tao, the founder of DJI drones, has also been rejected by Stanford, MIT and other famous schools.
I think that while our education emphasizes success, we should also teach children how to face failure, which is a more important experience for success.