Sophia Shao: [00:03:57] My name is Sophia. Sophia Shao. I’m from Los Altos, California. I go to Los Altos High School. I’m 17.5. I guess I’m almost 18. For fun, I play tennis. I box a little bit. I swim a little bit. It’s cool. It’s a little bit of everything.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra: [00:04:19] I feel like boxing is very rare. I never hear. That.
Sophia Shao: [00:04:22] Yeah, it’s kind of casual, but, like, it’s a good way to stress relief. Yeah.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra: [00:04:28] Yeah. Can that makes sense? Can you tell me a little bit about your family sophia?
Sophia Shao: [00:04:34] My parents both immigrated here from China. My dad went to one of the top universities in China, and both of them were able to move to the US. Right now, my grandparents are staying with us, which is pretty nice. My little sister is a rising sophomore in high school, so she’s excited for that.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra: [00:05:00] I’m curious. Growing up in Milpitas and then also now. I Mean, you’re still growing up in many ways in Los Altos. What are the people you’re growing up around like?
Sophia Shao: [00:05:13] When I was in elementary school, obviously, I remember there was a really big emphasis on the AMC test. Like, what’s that? It was like a big math competition. Specifically, remember the two kids who got the best scores in our school? And then I got third. And then in eighth grade where we had like an actual graduation with caps and gowns. And we had little ropes that we hung around or not. If you had a 4.0 and a four or a 4.5. We had awards for every grade. I remember I got to very proud of myself. And parents are also very proud of me because you got to stand in front of the stage and have you just say a speech about you. Wow. But it’s kind of those things where you just kind of grow up knowing that you need to be at a certain caliber to compete with everyone else. I just I remember growing up like that and being really upset when I got like a 3.9 or 3.8. I was so obsessed with getting A’s and I think I carried that with me tonight. Great. And it just hit me like a ton of bricks.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra: [00:06:42] I mean, you also grew up in an immigrant household, which for me has come with, I think, like a certain pressure to succeed, at least in the sense that I felt like I should live a better life than my parents had. Right. I’m curious if that’s similar to your experience at all.
Sophia Shao: [00:07:00] I think in the beginning it was when I was in elementary school if when I was in middle school, because they took such long sacrifices to get us where we were today. And when I moved to Los Altos, though, and I started high school, that almost faded in a way, mostly because I started piling on like work after work. Like, for example, today I have this obviously in the morning at about 130. I have a physical for my tennis season that’s coming up in a week. And then after that, I’m helping out my coach with something and they’re all things that I kind of signed up for that. And I probably have to do call jobs because tomorrow at 830, I have a college counselor meeting. My goodness. It’s kind of been my summer. So it’s gotten to the point where my parents are just like, you need to cool down, like just takes some things off of your schedule. So at this point, it’s like the parents are there. Like if it’s okay, if you don’t become like a heart surgeon or something.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra: [00:08:11] It’s interesting because it sounds like the pressure isn’t necessarily coming from your parents, but like, more like yourself. Like a self-imposed pressure?
Sophia Shao: [00:08:21] Yeah. I mean, I really like being busy. It used to be because of college, and I think a lot of people still do it because of college.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra: [00:08:31] Yeah. Like, you want to get into the best school.
Sophia Shao: [00:08:34] Right. But like at this point, I just kind of I’m used to it, so it’s like, I’ll just keep doing it, I guess.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra: [00:08:42] When you were a freshman, though, what were like how did this stress show up in conversations that you had with your friends? Like where you all just like struggling every day, just like, my God, I hate this math homework right now. Or like, did you have friends who noticed that stress to do that come up in their conversations?
Sophia Shao: [00:09:02] I remember the first time I had a conversation about college was freshman year, and when I was in freshman year, any two colleges I knew Stanford and Harvard. And I remember sophomore year I asked my appearance for a college counselor because I was still in the mindset of do whatever on your resume. They can get you into college.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra: [00:09:27] What was the turning point for you then? Did you have a turning point where you were like, This is too much for me?
Sophia Shao: [00:09:35] Sophomore year, summer, junior year, I kind of had a mental health episode. And that kind of it did kind of shift me into perspective because I went to like a bunch of hospitals and I saw kind of the state that the pandemic and being in Silicon Valley had left me in. And I talked to a lot of the psychiatrist there, and they told me that a lot of the people who come to mental hospitals and asylums, they’re from areas like Super Chino and Los Altos, who are also known for churning out like higher success rates, high graduating rates. Wow. And it kind of just hit me that I would just rather do things that I like doing rather than having to follow some sort of guidebook. You start this thing and you start this thing and you’re the founder of this club. It just you go down the list of what, a college football.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra: [00:11:00] So you realized that this pressure was eating at your soul, right? It sounds like. Yeah. And that a lot of it comes from just growing up in a place that values success and achievement over all else. Yeah. How do you fight against that?
Sophia Shao: [00:11:18] As like, bad as it is, if I just put it in like, a phrase I just don’t really care about. I mean, obviously, I want to get into college. Like, I don’t want people to listen to this and be like, Yes, I do want to get into college. It would be nice, but. I don’t want getting into a good college. Kind of take away from me actually living my life and going through each day.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra: [00:11:50] I mean, what things do you love to do and hope to do?
Sophia Shao: [00:11:54] I love helping people. I’ve talked to a friend about this who got into you. Chicago. If he hears this, isn’t so happy that you did. But he kind of helped me put it into words where I want to make a measurable impact on helping people, especially people in marginalized communities and kids. Because I worked at it as a head coach at a local sports camp. I love helping kids, especially the people, the kids that are either on the spectrum or have trouble controlling their emotions because I kind of see me a little bit in that and I feel like I don’t know. It just feels amazing to be able to make a difference for those kids. I like volunteering. I love playing tennis. My ball kid. Yesterday I got to meet Naomi Osaka and saw her practicing. I know. And that was awesome. Is that going to help my college resumé? Not that much. Am I ever going to see Naomi Osaka, like, five feet away from me? Probably not. So it’s like a give and take system.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra: [00:13:03] I mean, it is. So it’s. Speaking of college, it’s college application season. What are your conversations with your friends like now?
Sophia Shao: [00:13:12] My thing is I had a lot of issues in high school that I got over and a lot of comebacks that I’ve made, but it doesn’t the comebacks don’t show up on my GPA and my score. And I’m much more proud of my comebacks than him. Anything else.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra: [00:13:31] Like personal comebacks?
Sophia Shao: [00:13:34] Yeah personal comebacks
Ericka Cruz Guevarra: [00:13:34] Not academic comebacks.
Sophia Shao: [00:13:37] But so many of my friends. So that’s the reason why I’m not as stressed out. But a lot of my other friends either they suffered in silence or they deal with their issues in another sort of way. But a lot of them, when they’re nearing college application season, they know that their parents and themselves have super high expectations on where they want to go. Last year, I think around eight people got into Stanford, and I know everything. Not personally, but I know every single one of them by name. And more people got into Cornell’s Ivies, a lot of them into you C’s. You can tell because in your insta in their Instagram bio, they didn’t put a college probably means that they’re not going to college that they’re necessarily proud of.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra: [00:14:29] Wow.
Sophia Shao: [00:14:30] Or they didn’t reach that high expectation. But if they did put it in their Instagram bio, then they probably did.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra: [00:14:37] Well, Sophia, I mean, it’s your senior year. It is. That’s very exciting. I’m curious what you’re looking forward to most this year outside of academics.
Sophia Shao: [00:14:50] I am so excited for Tennis Season like so excited. I don’t know if I’m going to be captain or not yet, but I am going to be one of the oldest, if not the oldest person on the team. And it feels like only it might be because of the pandemic, but it feels like yesterday where I was a freshman on on my tennis team and the seniors were driving me home. I can’t drive, but it’s like it feels like it’s a roundabout now. I again took a lot of apps. I’m taking six, I believe, and I need to make up a lot of classes from sophomore year. I’m taking classes that I think I’ve never done before or at least are like sort of interesting to me, except for physics.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra: [00:15:42] But which one are you excited about the most?
Sophia Shao: [00:15:45] I’m really excited to take AP psych. I think it’ll be yeah, I think it’ll be pretty fun. I’m starting to do emergency medical service type things. I’m excited for my journalism class.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra: [00:15:57] Ooo love that
Sophia Shao: [00:15:59] Yeah. I’ll again be one of the oldest. So it’ll be nice to have everyone new coming in. I hope at least my teacher trusts me enough now, so she’ll let me do, like, solo projects. But I guess we’ll see. Yeah. Senior year it should be. It should be pretty fun.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra: [00:16:23] Well, I hope that it is fun. Sophia. I hope you enjoy your last year of high school. Thank you so much for joining us.
