North Carolina Teen Awarded $4.5 Million In Scholarships, Gets Accepted Into 113 Colleges

When Jasmine Harrison graduates from The Academy at Smith on May 24, she will have 113 college and university offers waiting for her—three of which are full rides, including $4.5 million in scholarships.

With help from her mother and her school’s faculty, Harrison, 17, was able to apply to 115 schools for just $135. She has been awarded full rides to three HBCUs: Ed Waters College in Jacksonville, Florida; Mississippi Valley State University in Itta Bena, Mississippi; and Bennett College in Greensboro, North Carolina.

“When I got the first couple in the mail, I was like, ‘OK, this is really happening.’ I didn’t really think I’d be able to do that,” Harrison told WFMY.

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Through Common Black College Application, a website that helps prospective students apply to 53 HBCUs for only $35, Harrison was able to apply to all the schools on the list and was accepted to 26 of them. She was also able to apply to North Carolina schools for free during the College Foundation of North Carolina College (CFNC) Application Week. She was also able to apply to 20 additional colleges through the general Common Application website. She was accepted to 113 of the 115 colleges she applied to.

“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 said.

In the end, Harrison has decided to stay close to home. She will attend Bennett College, an HBCU in North Carolina’s third largest city, with a population of more than 250,000. She has received a full ride covering the annual $28,000 cost to attend. Harrison plans to major in Biology with future hopes of becoming an Intensive Care Unit (ICU) nurse.

Only two universities turned Harrison’s application down—the University of South Carolina and Seton Hall University.

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