High School Senior Makenzie Thompson Accepted To 49 Colleges, Offered Combined $1.3 Million In Scholarships

A Westlake High School senior in Atlanta has committed to a school after earning a staggering 49 college acceptances and $1.3 million in scholarship offers.

Makenzie Thompson told 11Alive “I pretty much do it all,” and she really wasn’t lying, going down a huge list including, “I am currently the senior class president. I am a four-year veteran and co-captain of the Blue Rain dance team. I am also vice president of Beta Club. I am one of the baseball managers for the varsity baseball team. I am also a Georgia Merit Scholar recipient,” Thompson said.

She applied to so many schools just as a precaution in case “plan A” didn’t work out, and joked that a folder used to store all of her acceptance letters is “running out of space.” She applied to a total of 51 schools, and so far has been accepted to 49, rejected from one, and waiting on a decision from Cornell University even though she has already committed.

She told high schoolers who will be beginning their college applications next year to “trust the process. Everything will work out as it needs to as long as you put in the hard work, stay on top of it, and don’t give up.”

Thompson will be studying animal science at Tuskegee University, a historically black college in Alabama. She said she hopes to become a veterinarian, and added, “I’m excited for Tuskegee to start embracing me.” Thompson’s love of animals goes back to being raised as an only child and being surrounded by pets. That “did lead to my love of all animals,” Thompson told CNN.

It’s always interesting to hear about students who get a flood of college acceptances and get a true pick of the litter in terms of where they get to go. In 2018, Greensboro, North Carolina high schooler Jasmine E. Harrison made Thompson’s numbers look minuscule when she was accepted to 113 colleges out of the 115 she applied to. Harrison decided to attend Bennett College in her hometown and will graduate this year.

More and more people are applying to multiple colleges as some get more selective, and others more expensive. According to the Higher Education Research Institute, 35 percent of new freshmen applied to seven or more colleges in 2016. This is a lot higher than the same in 1990, which showed that only 9 percent of freshmen applied to that many.