New Wheeler High School grad Jada-Symone Batichon got accepted into 53 of the 58 colleges she applied to, with scholarships of about $1.8 million
Jada-Symone maintained a 4.0 grade-point average in high school and has already taken courses at two colleges
She will be attending the University of Alabama this fall to study business management
Some kids get into just one college, and many may receive a handful of acceptances. The ambitious ones often try for more — but few go as far as Georgia teen Jada-Symone Batichon, who notched yeses from 53 out of 58 colleges this year, with about $1.8 million in scholarships on top of that.
“All of it paid off,” the 18-year-old from Powder Springs tells PEOPLE.
“It’s everything I have worked hard for,” she adds. “My mom and dad always talked about how they were the first to go to college, so that always motivated me.”
Dr. Claudia Batichon, Jada-Symone’s mom, was a big part of her success, she says: The 39-year-old career, technical and agricultural education teacher at Wheeler High — where Jada-Symone just graduated — also runs THINK Protégé, an independent educational consulting initiative for college and career readiness.
“Even though I’m a daughter, I’m a client,” Jada-Symone says.
Since she started high school, Jada-Symone maintained a 4.0 grade-point average and participated in numerous extracurricular activities, including student government, cheerleading and even being a lunchroom monitor at an elementary school.
As a member of the National Honor Society, Jada-Symone created a club at Wheeler called EmpowHer. “We’ve had workshops where we talk about friendships, college and advice really for girls who just don’t have that support,” she explains.
She also dual-enrolled at Kennesaw State University and recently completed a college-level psychology course (with an A, of course).
Jada-Symone applied to so many schools in pursuit of scholarship offers, she says: “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.”
Claudia is a part of the first generation in their Haitian family to graduate from high school in America. One of her roles at THINK is to help find scholarships for her students.
When it came to her own daughter, she tells PEOPLE: “I was like, ‘I am going to treat you just like I do with all of my other kids that I work with.’ 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.”
When she was in middle school, Jada-Symone took six high school courses, according to her mom.
“She was basically done with a semester-and-a-half of high school while she was in middle school,” Claudia says. “By the time she got to junior year [at Wheeler], her guidance counselor was like, ‘There’s nothing else left here for her to take.’ “
So Jada-Symone took courses at KSU and Chattahoochee Technical College where she received her certification as a nursing assistant. She could have finished high school earlier, but Claudia wanted to make sure the teen still had the experience of a being normal high schooler.
“I want her to go to prom,” Claudia says. “I want her to still be a cheerleader. I want her to still play softball … By the time she became a senior, she had so much room [in her schedule]. I was like ‘You can work and you can do work-based learning.’ “ That’s how Jada-Symone took on her role as a lunchroom monitor.
With her graduation date approaching in May, Jada-Symone had to pick which of her 53 options for college was the best fit. It was a simple answer to choose the University of Alabama, one of the first schools she visited back in ninth grade. “Roll tide,” she says.
Her plan is to study business management with the goal of getting her undergraduate and master’s degrees within four years.
Her mom hopes her four brothers “follow her footsteps as well. You know how they always say, ‘You’re supposed to leave it better than you found it’? I felt like with me doing what I did, now she’s able to do it. And my hope is her children will be able to do even better.”
Jada-Symone doesn’t plan to slow down this summer before she moves to Alabama and is looking to land an internship or job.
“I definitely will miss my parents, especially my mom,” she says ahead of heading off to college. “I feel like it’ll be so quiet. I’m used to living in a busy household, I probably will get homesick.”
But, she adds, “I know how to manage my stuff … I think it won’t be that hard.”
