A North Carolina teen is celebrating her acceptance into 113 colleges this year and earning almost $4.5 million in merit-based scholarships.
Jasmine Harrison, 17, was strategic in her application process, choosing to cast her net as wide as possible while only paying $135 in application fees with the help of her school and community.
And the effort all paid off: she will be attending Bennett College, the historically Black college and university in her home state, on a full-ride scholarship to study biology.
“On those late nights when I was filling out those applications with my mom and we just felt like we cannot do this, we just ended up singing gospel songs together to get through the night,” Harrison told WFMY News.
She will graduate from The Academy at Smith in Greensboro, N.C. later this month with a 4.0 GPA. Harrison was also offered full-ride scholarships from Ed Waters College in Jacksonville, FL and Mississippi Valley State University in Itta Bena, MS, USA Today reports.
So how was Harrison able to apply to more than 100 schools? It was all strategy: She applied to 53 HBCUs with the single Common Black College Application (and got into 26 that way). She also took advantage of College Foundation of North Carolina (CFNC) College Application Week, where she was able to apply to a number of statewide schools for free. Finally, she also took advantage of the Common Application to apply to 20 more schools.
“When I got the first couple in the mail, I was like, ‘Okay, this is really happening.’ I didn’t really think I’d be able to do that,” Harrison said.
The college-bound student joins other high schoolers around the country who achieved amazing feats this past application season. Darrin Francois, for example, was a student at the International High School of New Orleans who was accepted to 83 colleges.
Congratulations class of 2018!