16-year-old receives R$45 million in college scholarships in the US and is close to a record

Posted on 04/28/2023 11:27

A 16-year-old student from Louisiana, USA, who has received more than $9 million USD (about R$45 million) in college scholarships.

Dennis Barnes, a student at New Orleans International High School, applied last August to 200 colleges across the country.

To date, he has been accepted to 125 institutions – and will wait for responses from others before deciding which institution to enroll in.

Scholarship offers could see Barnes set a new national record soon.

“My goal is to get to $10 million,” he told local television network WWL-TV, which reported for the first time on the amount of shows the student has accumulated.

In doing so, Barnes will be able to break the American record set three years earlier by another Louisiana student, Normandie Cormier.

Cormier, who attended Xavier University in Louisiana, a historically black institution, and is now completing a master’s degree at Louisiana State University, received $9.4 million in scholarships from nearly 140 institutions in 2019.

According to the British newspaper The Guardian, it sought recognition from the Guinness Book of World Records for the achievement – and although the organization could not find anyone with more scholarship offers in the US, it was unable to prove it. Whether it broke a world record given the global differences between higher education systems.

Barnes told WWL-TV that his social media profile was “shaken” when word of his achievement broke.

He is president of the National Honor Society, has a near-perfect GPA, is fluent in Spanish, and is already pursuing college credits at Southern University in New Orleans.

He added that the application process to many institutions was not “as stressful as most people think”.

“I started at the beginning of the school year and applied for a long time.”

In a statement from his school, Barnes said he plans to pursue a dual degree in computer science and criminal justice — and will announce next month which college he intends to attend.

Offer advice to applying peers: “The path to a successful future is to plan ahead, connect with university partners, and know that if you can see your goal, you can reach your goal.”