RICHMOND, Ky. (LEX 18) — A high school senior from Richmond is headed off to college this fall with a plethora of options.
Serena is a senior at Model Laboratory School who applied to a whopping 188 schools and was accepted into almost all of them.
She was accepted into 186 schools and also received $13.1 million in cumulative scholarships.
Serena, who asked LEX 18 not to use her last name for privacy reasons, said she began applying in the fall, using online resources like the Common App to simplify the process.
She searched for schools with zero application fees so she didn't have to pay and tells us she only ended up paying for four applications.
"I started in September, and I probably stopped around January," Serena said. "And it'd just be if I had free time. I probably needed a hobby, honestly. But it just became my hobby."
But Serena has stayed busy during high school. She has a 4.0 GPA, took AP classes, and plays tennis, soccer and multiple instruments. She's also in student government and Girl Scouts.
"You definitely don't need to apply to a bunch, unless you want to, because it is fun," Serena said. "Just put as much as you've done out there. Test scores aren't everything. I think you just have to work well on your essays."
Rachel Cornelius is one of Serena's teachers.
"Once I started talking to her and the counselors, I was blown away by her abilities one, to be able to apply to that many schools and have the time to do that many schools, and the care to do, but on top of it, to actually be accepted into that many schools," she said.
Serena applied to schools as far away as in Oregon and got accepted into prestigious universities like Penn State and Alabama. The only two schools she did not get accepted to were Northwestern in Chicago and Tulane in New Orleans. But she won't be too far away this fall.
Serena has decided to attend the University of Kentucky with a partial scholarship.
"I wanted to major in integrated strategic communications along with marketing, and possibly a chemistry minor, if I want to go into cosmetic chemistry," she said. "But I'll see where the four years takes me."
If her senior year success is any indication, college will take her far, too.
