Just a few months ago, JFK graduate Andrew Kang was “scared for his future” when he was waitlisted and even rejected from some safe colleges he had applied to. “I was pretty confident, but after those, I was like ‘oh, this is not the picture I painted in my head,’” said Kang. But the islander describes the sheer joy when he got accepted into not one, but four prestigious universities. “I remember just jumping up. I’m kind of teary-eyed just thinking about it. But it was like an activity day at JFK. We have those once a month. But my friend was eating his fiesta plate and I was sitting down. I was waiting to read my acceptance letters or decision letters with my family, so I wasn’t looking at them. It was my first acceptance letter. What happened was, an email dropped down (on my phone), very unintentionally, a notification dropped down that said ‘welcome to Yale,’” added Kang. On top of Yale, he would soon get welcome letters from two Ivy Leagues, Duke University and University of Pennsylvania, and Stanford. “Then at a speech and debate tournament, I opened my Stanford letter. The same joy, the same erupture of claps. I was jumping up from my seat. It was such a life defining moment even, because I know that these are life altering decisions and life altering moments I’ll be having,” he added. Kang has made that life altering decision and he’s now Stanford bound in less than two weeks. “I can’t wait until I spread my wings in the San Francisco area. I’m trying to get into the startup scene, do a lot of cool things at Stanford, even screenwriting. I’m very looking forward to it,” he said. KUAM asked, “It must have been a hard decision to choose which one to go to. What made you decide on Stanford?” “I think the number one thing with Stanford had to be the opportunities it gave me. When I looked at these schools, they had a lot of prestige to them. But I wanted to see which ones were well rounded,” said Kang. With a well rounded humanities division, the number one law school and a promising STEM program, he says Stanford is a perfect fit for him and his passions. He's definitely put in the hard work throughout high school, after getting an interest in STEM research during sophomore year. “I started with coral reef research. I’d wake up at four am in the morning and walk the entirety of Tumon bay. I’d have a sensor thing and check for ground water. After that, I worked on seagrass disease on the island of Guam,” he added. And representing Guam in International Science Fairs, an opportunity he says is thanks to growing up on an island like Guam. “There was like this up and down adventure with STEM. I’d go to the international science fairs called Regneron ISEF. There was also the Taiwan International Science Fair that I got second at, outplacing a lot of other countries, like being a STEM champion. There were a lot of STEM accolades along the way, with a lot of really cool marine biology research that only Guam had to offer. I feel it’s really true that I couldn’t have been able to do those cool marine biology research I like, for example (if I lived in) Ohio or Alabama,” he added. Kang plans to return to Guam every summer and continue to give back to the community that raised him. He thanks his understanding teachers, great school faculty, GTA for funding his flights, helpful peers, his loving family, and faith in God. Congratulations once again to this islander, and good luck in the next four years at Stanford.