Memphis Teen Offered Over $7M In Scholarships Thanks To Unusual College Application Strategy.

Each year around this time, high school seniors are filled with excitement and anxiety as they finally learn the fate of their college applications. Hopeful students enter this season with a million questions, wondering if their top choice schools will accept them and if they will receive any scholarship money.

This was true for Shariah Edwards, who recently graduated from Power Center Academy High School in Memphis, Tennessee. But Shariah had nothing to fear; she blew the school administrators away when they found out that she had 149 different college acceptance letters to choose from. Each school that Shariah was accepted to is a four-year institution with campus locations spanning the entire country.

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“She has totally blown us away,” college counselor Tamara Woods-Wormley told CBS News Wire.

Tamara gave Shariah a list of colleges that did not have application fees and slowly Shariah worked her way down the entire list. Wanting to have as many college options as possible, Shariah also had the goal of becoming a Million Dollar Scholar. Students at Power Center Academy are awarded with the honor of this title and a symbolic check at graduation if they receive at least $1 million in scholarship offers.

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Shariah was awarded over $7 million in scholarships from all 149 colleges.

Backlash on the internet has been surfacing that she shouldn’t have been allowed to apply to so many universities because it may have prevented someone else from being accepted in her place. However, after four years of hard work in honors and AP classes, you cannot really blame the graduate for wanting to make sure she got into a college.

“I didn’t want to limit myself,” said Shariah. “I was amazed, because I didn’t think I would get that many acceptances.”

Shariah hasn’t yet decided which university she will attend, but she certainly has plenty to choose from!

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