A high school senior from International High School of New Orleans tops the national news cycle with record-breaking notoriety. Dennis Barnes received over $9 million dollars in scholarship awards and 125 college and university acceptances. The scholarship money marks the highest award sum any high school senior has ever received in U.S. history, breaking the Guinness Book of World Records’ previously documented statistic.
Barnes has a number of accolades that helped attribute to his awards and acceptances. He not only maintains a cumulative GPA of 4.98, but he is also fluent in Spanish and has held leadership positions within the National Honor Society, according to 4WWL news. In addition, Barnes has been earning college credits at Southern University of New Orleans, while attending high school.
“The road to a successful future is to plan ahead, network with the collegiate partners, and know that If you can see your vision, you can achieve your goal,” Barnes said in hopes to offer motivation and advice to other high school seniors applying to college and scholarship opportunities.
Barnes is not the first high school senior to take centerstage around college and university acceptances and scholarship awards. In 2019, Normadie Cormier received the same honor, as the previous record holder. She received over $8.7 million in scholarship awards, and was also a Louisiana native, but from Lafayette. She attended Early College Academy and took college courses at South Louisiana Community College. She received over 130 college and university acceptances, including from five medical schools. 16 of those offers were noted as full rides, according to KLFY.
