High Schooler Jada-Symone Batichon Has Been Accepted To 53 Colleges And Received $1.8M In Scholarships
A Georgia teenager has reached a huge academic milestone: Getting 53 college acceptance letters and receiving $1.8 million in scholarships, PEOPLE shared.
High schooler Jada-Symone Batichon, 18, also thanks her mother and father for their inspiration as the first in their families to go to college. That motivated her to work harder toward her goals.
“All of it paid off,” the Wheeler High School graduate told the magazine.
Jada-Symone was an accomplished student, maintaining a 4.0 GPA in high school and having completed six high school courses in middle school. She was also involved in student government and the cheerleading team and was a member of the National Honor Society. Dual-enrolled at Kennesaw State University, she obtained a nursing assistant certification from Chattahoochee Technical College as well.
Jada-Symone says her academic success would not have been possible without the help of her mother, Dr. Claudia Batichon, who is a technical and agricultural education teacher at Wheeler High and also the founder of THINK Protégé, a post-secondary and career readiness educational consulting firm, according to its website.
“I was like, ‘I am going to treat you just like I do with all of my other kids that I work with,’” Claudia, who helped her daughter find scholarships, told PEOPLE. “I just felt like we needed structure. This whole college process is overwhelming. And if she had that structure, it would be easy for her to navigate the process.”
The younger Batichon commented on leaning on her mom’s firm support.
“I didn’t want to go into debt. My mom told me interest rates are high. A lot of people are stuck paying loans, and she is still paying hers. … I wanted the upper hand in that — my choice,” she said.
Jada-Symone decided to attend the University of Alabama, where she will study business management. Before starting college, she plans to secure an internship or job. She also hopes to obtain her bachelor’s and master’s degrees within the next four years.
