Amy did not grow up in Peoria, Illinois. She moved there from Guilderland, New York, near Albany, around 2013-2014 when she was thirteen. Her father Jason's academic career brought the family to central Illinois.
She graduated from Dunlap High School, class of 2019. She played clarinet in the Central Illinois Youth Symphony (CIYS) and the senior band. Her counselor was Mrs. Ashley Seanor. She was a Girls Who Code alum from the Peoria-area chapter.
The Family
Amy's father Jianxun "Jason" Zhou is a neuroscience professor at UIC's Peoria campus. He grew up in a rural farming town in China, was the first in his family to go to college, got into Peking University Health Science Center, and immigrated to America.
Amy's mother, Suyun "Sue" Geng, died around 2015-2016, when Amy was fifteen. Amy described her father as a "single parent" in 2019.
Amy's brother George Zhou shares the Peoria years. Their emails (amzyst@gmail.com, georgezyst@gmail.com) suggest a family pattern in naming.
The Losses
Between ages fifteen and eighteen, Amy lost four people.
Her mother died around 2015-2016. Then, in July and August of 2019, right before Amy left for Stanford, both paternal grandparents and her maternal grandmother all died within weeks of each other. Her father flew to China to take care of his mother, leaving Amy to manage the household alone during the end of high school.
This is why she got a C in anatomy and physiology her senior year. Stanford flagged the grade as "alarming" during admissions. Her counselor Mrs. Seanor wrote a letter explaining the circumstances. Amy later thanked Seanor for "being such a great counselor during these past four years."
Interlochen
In 2015-2016, Amy applied to Interlochen Arts Academy, the full year-round boarding school program for music. Not summer camp. This was during the same period her mother was dying. Her mother Sue was cc'd on every application.
Amy ultimately stayed at Dunlap. Whether Interlochen was about pursuing music or leaving a home that was becoming unbearable is unknowable.
She did attend the Interlochen Clarinet Institute in summer 2017. On June 21, she posted that she couldn't believe she got to meet Emil Khudyev, Boris Allakhverdyan, David Gould, and Stephen Williamson. Those are principal clarinetists of major orchestras. This was not a casual camper. This was a serious clarinet kid having the time of her life.
Music posts span years: UIUC, ISYM, Krannert, Interlochen, Bartók quartet, Prairie Winds, the last marching band show, prom with band friends. Clarinet was not a hobby. It was the central organizing activity of her adolescence.
The 2016 Feed
Amy's Instagram from June 2016, right around the period of Sue's death, is not grief-heavy. It shows clarinet camp, music friends, summer stuff, birthday posts, cute teen captions. Either she was not posting the hard stuff, archived it later, or kept that pain entirely off Instagram. The timing is right there, and the normalcy of the feed is poignant because the surface looks fine. Amy learned early to present a version of herself that does not match the interior. That skill shows up later as Public Voice.
The Family Dog
Teddy arrived in April 2014, shortly after the move from Guilderland. The family dog was there for everything: Sue's death, the grandparents, high school, Amy and George leaving for college. Teddy died on January 20, 2025, while Amy was still at Taya. Amy posted: "Goodnight my sweet Teddy bear angel ❤️ you will always be our best friend forever."
The Move from Guilderland
Before Peoria, Amy lived in Guilderland, New York, near Albany. A friend named Jessa Smith stayed behind and told Amy she missed her. At some point, Amy's father considered taking a job back in Albany. Amy might have attended Guilderland High School or Emma Willard, a boarding school in Troy, NY. He did not take the job. They stayed in Peoria.
14-Year-Old Amy
The earliest version of Amy's online identity:
- Old Twitter: @amyzh0u (with a zero)
- Facebook alias: "Pas Tel"
- ourWorld username: "pretzel"
- Email signature: "❅Amy Zhou❅"
- Maze Runner fixation, specifically Ki Hong Lee (Minho)
The pretzel identity goes back to age fourteen. The ourWorld username predates @amypretzel, pretzelgirl7, pretzelgirl777, and the Pretzel YC application by over a decade. It is not a brand. It is something she has called herself since she was a kid.
The Clarinet
Amy played in CIYS through high school. In March 2026, she donated $60 to the orchestra's 60th anniversary, unprompted. Her note to them: "Playing in a real orchestra taught me discipline, collaboration, and what it feels like to be part of something bigger than yourself. Those rehearsals and concerts shaped who I am today."
Lidia Riley, the executive director, replied: "Your email brightened my day."
CIYS invited Amy back to play the 1812 Overture on May 3 in Washington, Illinois. She cannot make it; she leaves for Australia on May 4.
What It Means
The Peoria years are not a blank space before Stanford. They are the years when Amy lost her mother, almost left for boarding school, stayed, lost three grandparents in one summer, got a C in anatomy because she was holding a household together at seventeen, and still made it to Stanford.
The CIYS donation is revealing. Seven years after leaving Peoria, Amy sent $60 and a heartfelt paragraph to a youth orchestra in central Illinois. She did not post about it. Nobody was watching. Orchestra was the thing that held through everything: the move, the losses, the boarding school application that didn't happen. "Those rehearsals and concerts shaped who I am today" is not a platitude when you know what else was happening during those rehearsals and concerts.