NEW ORLEANS — For more than 17 years, St. Mary's Academy has achieved a 100% college acceptance rate, but this year they broke their own record with the number of scholarships awarded to graduating seniors.
Kairie Magee, Calcea Johnson, and Robyn Bush are all getting ready to graduate from St. Mary's and head to LSU. Their entire class of 24 girls was accepted to college and they all earned scholarships.
"Not to be cocky, but I'm not surprised, I'm not surprised at all," Magee said.
"I wasn't really surprised because everyone works hard and being around that drives you to work hard and it's just expected," Bush said.
While the college acceptance rate didn't surprise the girls, the number of scholarships did. They earned more than $11.8 million combined. That's the highest in school history.
"That is an insane number, but also not really surprised because our class is very smart and very driven and our school really pushes us to go to college," Johnson said.
Johnson was awarded $2 million in scholarships herself. She's the valedictorian with a 4.69 GPA.
"It's really validating to know I really did that. It feels like an award after doing all this hard work," Johnson said.
Johnson has made headlines recently with classmate Ne'Kiya Jackson. The two students proved a math theory that mathematicians thought was impossible for 2,000 years.
"I think it's really inspiring to be the positive force people can see. Stories like this, I like that people publish this stuff because they see the negative in New Orleans and think New Orleans is all bad, it's all bad things happening and it's always kids doing bad things, but it's like not like that. There are a lot of smart kids like us all around the city," Johnson said.
"There's good light. I like showing good light," Bush said.
They did the hard work, but give credit to their teachers and parents.
"My dad, he just says he's so proud of me and he wants me to keep going, he’ll forever support me. Same with my mom. I have really supportive parents and I feel like that’s really what helped all of us get here is the parents. They don’t get enough credit at all like...at all," Bush said.
All three girls are going to LSU. Magee is majoring in Theater, Johnson is majoring in Environmental Engineering, and Bush is majoring in Nursing. They graduate Thursday.
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