Seeing Zhang Hao finish his call, Paul Pierce, though not understanding what Zhang Hao said, noticed that his front-line partner, high school friend, and most honest tenant was in a bad mood. Pierce patted Zhang Hao on the shoulder: "Let's go, want to practice at school?"
"You go ahead, Auntie said you're not going to UCLA anymore?"
"That's right, I'm not going. The coach from the University of Kansas invited me."
"Also a full scholarship?"
"Yes, they also gave me a full basketball scholarship."
Zhang Hao was truly envious!
It's incredibly impressive, UCLA, the Brown Bears! A basketball powerhouse! To say no just like that.
And also invited by another NCAA powerhouse team, the University of Kansas Jayhawks!
"UCLA and Kansas only offered me academic scholarships," Zhang Hao said resentfully.
"Their approach is terrible, but don't worry, I believe you'll find an ideal university. Your grades are so good, and you play basketball so well..."
Pierce rambled on for a while before walking away satisfied. Zhang Hao thought about his current situation and felt a slight melancholy.
Five years ago, when he was 13, a semi-professional team from the domestic A-level basketball league invited him to join their youth team, but his father told him that entering the system would trap him, and he couldn't make his own decisions about anything professional.
Zhang Hao wanted to control his future, so he didn't join the Beijing Youth Team. Instead, he focused on studying well while diligently practicing his basketball skills.
Three years ago, due to the Basketball Association's arrogance or for other reasons, they declined the United States Basketball Association's invitation to the youth basketball tournament, turning the match into an unofficial game.
At 15, while studying in the second year of high school in China, Zhang Hao was recommended by the Imperial Capital Normal University Affiliated High School to participate in the Sino-American youth match. Despite a miserable defeat against a group of twelve to thirteen-year-old kids, he performed decently, grabbing 11 rebounds in 27 minutes, along with a decent jumper to score 14 points, catching the eye of the Inglewood High School coach.
His family was quite wealthy at the time. His father, Zhang Weidong, decisively left his secure job in the mid-1980s to venture into business, making a name for himself in the seafood industry. Seeing his son being recognized by an American coach, he once again made a decisive choice to send Zhang Hao to study in Los Angeles for high school.
Who knew that in 1993, the exchange rate of the US Dollar to RMB soared from about 1 to 5.7 to nearly 1 to 9 in the second half of the year. The price of imported seafood skyrocketed, as did other imported industries. While exports were smooth, the domestic foundational industry was far from perfect, urgently needing foreign materials. Domestic prices soared, and the economic development hit a bottleneck, slowing income growth. Zhang Hao's father's assets faced tremendous challenges.
Fortunately, Zhang Hao's father was decisive, abandoning the previously still affordable now doubled expensive import market, entering the domestic seafood and river fish markets, cutting losses in time. Though his assets shrunk significantly, they barely kept operations going. Although still considered wealthy domestically, the year's cost of several tens of thousands of US Dollars for tuition, living expenses, and other expenditures strained the family. With decreasing income and RMB buying fewer US Dollars, the difficulty more than doubled.
Zhang Hao was very considerate, trying to minimize personal expenses, but for international students, not only is tuition more expensive, but accommodation, health insurance, and other aspects cost more than for local Americans. Compared with California locals, Zhang Hao's tuition was about three times that of a Californian.
Upon arriving in the United States, Zhang Hao realized that Americans liked international students because they boost school and local finances, providing high welfare for local students, unlike some, who pay to bring back foreign trash, and even some beasts force campus girls to form study groups with the foreign trash.
Inglewood High School was already one of the best private high schools in the nation, ranked 5th in California and 41st nationwide, making it expensive. Even though Zhang Hao secured a $3,000 annual high school basketball scholarship due to his decent performance in the California league, compared with the $13,000 annual international student tuition, it was just a drop in the bucket.
However, the family managed to afford it for high school. Now two years have passed, and he's about to graduate high school.
Zhang Hao had no issues with exams, having scored 1316 in the SAT exam held last January during his junior year, where the average score was 876. His score meant he could meet the admission criteria for the best universities in the United States, and getting into top universities was not a problem.
In basketball, his performance in high school was not just good but outstanding. He was one of the best small forwards in the California high school league. Just concluded his senior season, he, along with Pierce, helped Inglewood High School win the California championship, and many locals had heard of him.
But recently, during interviews with several universities, UCLA in California was willing to offer an academic scholarship but not a basketball scholarship, treating him like a normal student applying to join the university basketball club without even a chance to compete for a partial scholarship. The University of Southern California was willing to offer a partial basketball scholarship but not a full scholarship, and this partial scholarship depended on whether he could make it to the varsity team. Most of the universities in California and nearby Arizona were only willing to provide academic scholarships, at most offering partial basketball scholarships.