Going to college is a privilege not every high school student has.
As much as an individual would like to pursue higher education, college tuition fees are too high for everyone to afford.
Others would opt for getting a student loan – something that one would soon dread because it would haunt them even after college.
The ideal route is to apply for college scholarships, but even this option isn’t easy.
You must send numerous applications if you hope to get accepted into at least one of the colleges and universities you aim for.
The competition is also very stiff; some would start building up their resume from grade school, joining various clubs and other additional courses and electives.
Getting into one is difficult, but could you imagine being accepted in 125+ schools?
A high school senior from New Orleans received dozens of acceptance letters after he went on an application frenzy to 200 hundred schools nationwide.
He started receiving acceptance letters and scholarship grants, and everything piled up soon enough.
Dennis Barnes from International High School of New Orleans has set a new record.
Aside from 125 acceptance letters (and counting), he received more than $9 million worth of scholarships, and he’s expecting it to reach $10 million once all the schools respond.
Before this, the national record for the highest amount of scholarships received was $8.7 million in 2019 by a senior graduate of Lafayette High School.
Knowing how dedicated her son was, his mother was not surprised that it turned out like this.
Dennis started sending out college applications in August last year because he wanted to raise the bar higher for college admissions and saw letters piling in his mailbox soon enough.
But what did these schools see in his resume that made them offer all these scholarships? Well, these are just a few of Dennis’ credentials.
He has maintained a grade point average of 4.98 and was a leader and member of the National Honor Society.
For the past two years in high school, he also enrolled at the Southern University of New Orleans and earned college credits by taking college-level courses while studying for his high school diploma.
Dennis is also a bilingual student, fluent in Spanish.
He has received credits for his excellence, like the Jose Luis Baños Award for Excellence in Spanish by the Honorary Consul of Span in New Orleans Maria Page.
Because of this, he also earned an official qualification from the Institute of Cervantes.
Dennis deserved every scholarship grant on his lap, but what is his secret?
He believes that planning and eyeing your goal is key to getting good scholarship grants in the future.
This means working toward a good GPA (studying hard and acing exams), taking elective courses that would give you an edge in your chosen degree, joining co-curricular activities, and networking with collegiate partners.
We can say he did all these, and he did it right.
One question remains: which school would he choose?
In the end, after going through all his options, he chose Cornell.
He said in a video that he chose the school because it’s the “best Ivy League for engineering.” Cornell is lucky to have this talented young man, and we wish him the best in the future!
Watch his incredible story in the video below.
