NEW ORLEANS — Dennis Barnes is just 16 and already set to graduate college in the next few weeks.
“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,” Barnes said.
But, Barnes isn’t the average child. He’s been accepted into 125 colleges and universities so far and has earned $9 million in scholarships.
“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. It just caught up with me,” Barnes said.
According to those around him that starting place was way back when he was little.
“[He] has been like this since a baby. He’s always been very inquisitive, always on top of everything. I always tell people he was my child that I didn’t have to go behind him, he would come behind me. 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,” Reba Barnes, his mom said.
He has a more than perfect GPA, is dual enrolled at Southern University and speaks fluent Spanish. So many people have wondered why he’s applied to so many schools when he could’ve sent just a few applications and been accepted into those.
“It’s all about vision. All of our students have that opportunity as far as applying to multiple colleges, to look at it from a broad spectrum and opening the vacuum very wide so he can have an array of opportunities. Dennis bought into that,” Denise James, his school guidance counselor said.
“It wasn’t something that was overwhelming like most people would think. I get that a lot, people ask me how I do it, 'Why’d you apply to so many schools?' I have patience is what I’ve been told but it really wasn’t that bad. I started in the beginning of the school year and over time, over a long period of time I was applying to schools,” Barnes said.
He’s set to break a national record with the amount of money he’s gotten in scholarships but he’s not done yet.
“My goal Is to reach $10 million,” he told us.
He wasn’t expecting all the social media attention he’s gotten.
"[Breaking the record] It's amplified a lot and it’s a lot farther than what I would’ve anticipated. Yesterday my social media blew up, it was on the television the news, people were calling me and texting me it was very different. It feels good but I would’ve never felt this would happen to me,” Barnes said.
As for what’s next? He wants to study computer science. He says he’s narrowed down his choices but hasn’t decided just yet. Whatever he chooses, those around him know he’ll succeed.
“I hope he fulfills all the desires of his heart. I know he has big ambition, big goals and I believe, with everything in me, he’s going to achieve all of it and he’s going to be successful,” his mom said.
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