Every year, Diamond Bar High School produces a handful of stand-out students who strive toward extraordinary heights both in academics and extracurriculars. Soon-to-be graduates Felix Lien, April Song, Charlene Hsu, Alana Zhang, Yunxuan Li, Betty Kim, and Shana Roan will be heading off to Ivy League schools in the fall.

Lien will be attending Columbia University in New York, having been named a C. Prescott Davis Scholar. Although not a scholarship, the position will inflate Lien’s grants and will waive his work-study requirements for his first two years. He plans on pursuing materials science and engineering or finance in the future.

“I’m motivated by the prospect of using what I learn to help our society in some way or form. Not making the most of my time in school would be a waste,” he said.

Joining Lien in New York is April Song, who will be attending Cornell University. She will be majoring in hotel management after participating in related activities through FBLA.

“I’m excited to intern at different businesses and hotels, firms, and different events not available for me here in the West Coast. I hope to mark my place there,” Song said.

Charlene Hsu will also be attending Cornell, majoring in chemistry and chemical biology. Hsu aspires to be a biochemist and would like to conduct stem cell research.

“My motivation was … the need to get a full scholarship. I wouldn’t have been able to go to college if I hadn’t gotten a substantial amount of financial aid,” Hsu said.

Cornell will have the most DB alumni of the bunch, as Alana Zhang will also be attending the school. She is currently intending on majoring in Biology with an emphasis on Cell Biology, as it was her favorite subject in high school.

The last senior who will be attending Cornell is Yuxuan Li, majoring in philosophy after years of listening to his parents’ moral stories. Additionally, Li plans to pursue business, writing, or art performance in the future.

New Hampshire will be Betty Kim’s home in a couple of months, as she will be attending Dartmouth College. Kim chose Dartmouth because it has all the elements she’s looking for in a liberal arts school, while having the feel of a large private institution.

“I think that people often undervalue the power of humanistic studies and I’m going to take it upon myself to become an expert and prove them wrong,” she said.

Joining the others on the East Coast is Shana Roan, who will be attending the University of Pennsylvania, having specifically chosen this school due to its well-known nursing program.

Other seniors who are heading off to other prominent private schools are Julia Chen, Isabelle Jiang and Margaret Wang, who will all be attending Rice University; Pansy Tseng, who will be attending Duke; Claire Yang attending Georgetown; Miriam Sun, who will be attending Caltech. Alenta Demissew, Crystal Chang and Jeff Chow will all go to MIT; Karen Sun will be attending Johns Hopkins University; Letitia So, Nicholas Zhou, David Cho, Ashley Lee, Sooji Kim and Han Chen, among others, will be attending USC.