Top Scholars
By Ashley Shah
The top scholars for the Scripps Ranch High School (SRHS) class of 2025 – Delbert Tran (valedictorian) and Michelle Cai (salutatorian) – share their experiences, advice and future plans.
Delbert Tran, valedictorian, 4.93 GPA
This summer, Delbert Tran will be starting at University of California, Berkeley, studying electrical engineering and computer science.
At SRHS, Tran was heavily involved with the Cyberpatriot program through the AFJROTC.
“I’d like to highlight Cyberpatriot, which is a youth cyber security program that is sponsored by the Air Force and other organizations. I did it for all four years. We accomplished a lot, and this past year we managed to get first place nationally at our competition,” he said.
In addition to Cyberpatriot, Tran was involved in peer mentoring.
“Peer mentoring is a counselor-run program to help uplift peers at our school who may be struggling in different aspects of their life,” he said. “I found this commitment to be very fulfilling, and became a board member this past year.”
Outside of campus, Tran continued his interest in computer science.
“I worked with an organization called ORESFALL to help make modifications to games and new versions. This has been a passion project for me, as I got into game development in my freshman year,” he said.
Tran advised students who want to achieve their academic goals to try anything.
“It’s very cliche, but take as many opportunities as you can. I did not go into high school wanting to be valedictorian, but I have always been a go-getter, which helped me pursue a high level of academic rigor,” he said. “If there is something you are even vaguely interested in, explore that.”
Tran expressed his thankfulness to the staff at SRHS.
“I want to highlight my AP World History teacher, Mr. Williams. That class was hard, but it was very transformative in the way I studied, and how I perceived being a student,” he said. “Ms. McDonald, my counselor, has been very helpful with college admissions, and helped me run peer mentoring. She’s so supportive and nice.”
Michelle Cai, salutatorian, 4.87 GPA
Michelle Cai was involved with many organizations at SRHS. She shared the most notable ones.
“Science Olympiad is a really active club on campus. We have a lot of activities and a regional competition every year, which is always pretty fun.” she said. “Academic League has also been very fun because our advisor, Mr. Sacco, is really involved, which is nice to have. We had matches every week at different schools.”
Other commitments included Junior Reserve Officers Training Corps (JROTC) for one year; varsity cross country; president of Biology Olympiad Club; Math Club.
“I ran outside of campus because it is something I enjoyed and wanted to improve on,” she said.
Cai also works at a local boba shop.
She shared her advice on how to achieve academic success.
“I would say do your work and put intention into your classes and into learning. The results will come naturally after that,” Cai said.
She expressed her thanks to teachers that made an impact.
“I had a lot of great teachers, especially in the AP classes,” Cai said. “My calculus teacher and I would talk about math and he also ran, so we would talk about that. I had a great honors chemistry teacher as well. They have helped me a lot in those subjects and in general,” Cai said.
In the fall, Cai will be attending California Institute of Technology (CalTech) where she will be majoring in bioengineering or data science. She will continue to run cross country.
“The organizations I was involved in gave me an outlet to pursue biology further beyond the classroom, which relates to what I want to do in the future,” she said.