A 21-year-old Filipino student graduated with honors and awards and a near-perfect grade point average from the John Hopkins University in Maryland in the US, ranked as the 11th best university in the world.
During the JHU graduation ceremony last May 18, Co was listed as one of the students with General Honors, a recognition for those with a GPA of at least 3.5 since the university does not give out Latin honors.
JHU’s The Krieger School of Arts and Sciences also gave a certificate of achievement to Co for successfully completing the Woodrow Wilson Undergraduate Research Fellowship Program for which he was a recipient. He got a $10,000 (around P470,000) grant for his research work.
Co also received the J.J. Sylvester Award for Outstanding Mathematics by a Graduating Senior and the Applied Mathematics and Statistics Achievement Award for outstanding accomplishment by a senior student.
For his outstanding performance, Co has been admitted as member to the Phi Beta Kappa, the most prestigious honor society in the US founded in 1776.
Co said when he graduated from the Philippine Science High School Main in 2012, his goal was to find a university that will offer him opportunities.
“Studying in the US was not necessarily my main goal. I wanted to go to a university that could offer me really good opportunities in my interests and research. I got to Johns Hopkins because it is one of the best research universities in the world,” he said.
During his elementary and high school years in the Philippines, Co was already an outstanding student and won medals for the country in various international math and science contests.
