The sky is the limit for a former La Salle College student after winning a US National Science Foundation fellowship to study for a PhD at Harvard Medical School.
The prestigious award crowns a string of educational achievements for Dennis Ho Sze-long, including runner-up in the South China Morning Post 2001 Student of the Year awards, a 2003 AT&T Leadership Award and 10 As in HKCEEs.
Mr Ho, 21, of Tsing Yi, graduated from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in December with the highest possible grades after completing his biology degree six months early. He will now do cancer research at Harvard for his PhD after winning a graduate place in biomedical sciences. The fellowship is one of about 100 granted across the US in the biological sciences.
'It is a great feeling that I have so many opportunities in the field of biomedicine,' he said. 'I know that I will be able to work for the best researchers or for the top companies in the world.
'But it was a nerve-wracking moment when I heard that I had got the NSF award because they are life-changing results. When I was at La Salle, I never dreamed that I would be doing a PhD at Harvard.'
The high-achieving student has still found time to return to his alma-mater during visits to Hong Kong to give tips to younger pupils on how to negotiate the snakes and ladders of educational choices that they face.