A 16-year-old from New Orleans been offered more than $9million in university scholarships and received admission offers from 125 schools and counting.
Dennis Barnes, who is in his final year of high school despite his age, applied to 200 colleges across the country beginning last August.
Wherever he goes, Barnes plans to pursue a dual degree in computer science and criminal justice. The bright student has not yet decided which college he will attend but will announce that next Tuesday.
He is now looking to break the world record for the highest amount in scholarship offers – in 2019 a female high schooler from Louisiana collected $9.4million.
‘My goal is to reach $10 million,’ Barnes told the local station WWL-TV. The high school are now working with Guinness to confirm his record.
Dennis Barnes, 16, has been offered more than $9million in university scholarships and received admission offers from 125 schools
Barnes is still receiving offers from schools around the country and hopes to break the Guinness World Record – thought its not clear if any such achievement is measured
‘I submitted college applications in August, with an eye on raising the bar high for college admissions. Decision letters were an overflow in my mailbox and hundreds of scholarship offers,’ he told WWL.
Barnes has a GPA of 4.98 and holds leadership positions in the National Honor Society chapter at his high school. He is also fluent in Spanish and already pursuing college credits at the Southern University at New Orleans.
He said he was not always top of his class.
‘I will say I haven’t always been a straight-A student. I’ve always been devoted to getting my school work done and get good grades like the average 𝘤𝘩𝘪𝘭𝘥,’ he said.
‘It’s not normal, I know it’s not of course, but I started at someplace. There’s a starting point for everything. I started and then realized where I was going and as I realized the path I was heading down, I rolled my momentum and I ended up farther than I ever thought I would’ve been,’ Barnes told the station.
According to this mother, Reba Barnes, his success was to be expected.
‘[He] has been like this since a 𝑏𝑎𝑏𝑦. He’s always been very inquisitive, always on top of everything,’ she said.
‘If he had a field trip, he would put the paper right in front of me, “Mama sign this”. I never had to ask him for the report card. He’s always been diligent and purposeful in everything he does,’ she added.
His mother Reba Barnes (pictured) said her son was always organized and on top of things
Fellow Louisianan Normandie Cormier was accepted into 139 colleges in 2019.
She applied to schools through the Common App and the Common Black College App, which allows students to apply to hundreds of schools at once.
She is now doing a masters degree at Louisiana State University and runs XollegePass, a company that advises disadvantaged students and 𝘤𝘩𝘪𝘭𝘥ren from low-income families on how to find academic success.
Cormier told the Guardian on Tuesday aid offered to her eventually grew to $9.4million and that at the time she sought recognition from Guinness World Records.
She said Guinness told her it it was not aware of anyone being offered more scholarship money but that it could not establish a world record as higher education is structured differently around the world.
A Guinness spokesperson confirmed to the Guardian it does not maintain a record for most scholarship offers made to one person.
