A Florida student is accepted into 27 schools with $4M in scholarships

Jonathan Walker, a high school senior from Panama City, Florida, has a bright future ahead of him after applying to and being accepted into 27 schools.

Among his 27 schools are Ivy League institutions like Yale, Harvard, and Stanford, as well as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

And, all told, his scholarship offers reach more than $4 million in total.

27 schools with $4 million in scholarships

Walker is in the International Baccalaureate Program, which means that he took college-level courses during his junior and senior years of high school. The curriculum covers all disciplines and awards college credits to students who pass multiple assessments. After years of hard work, Walker only applied to schools where he could be truly “happy.”

"It was just a surprise just to see that they were interested in me and they wanted me to attend their institution, that they were offering me admission," the 18-year-old student told ABC News. "It was just a ton of excitement."

Moreover, Walker is gifted in more ways than one. He was voted homecoming king, enjoys sports, and is a member of the school’s football team. And, in addition to extra-curricular activities and maintaining a social life, Walker is also a brilliant inventor.

According to an interview he gave to CBS Miami/CNN, he wants to help people, as he has always loved creating technologies that have the potential to help those in need. He is working with a partner on a wrist device that helps the deaf and blind to communicate better with people, and it’s currently in the process of being patented.

Walker also told ABC News that he previously developed a device that helps people remember to take their prescription medication.

A budding engineer

Walker will most likely have a difficult time deciding which school to attend, as he has almost thirty alternatives. However, he hopes to pursue engineering in any case, a desire sparked by a chemical set given to him by his parents. When asked what his key to success is, he credited his supporting family, who had a substantial impact on igniting the fire of curiosity in him.

"I found a way to channel that curiosity into science and that soon blossomed into engineering. And then from there I really learned that I could use engineering to help people," Walker said. "And so I just became super interested in creating devices that could help disadvantaged communities and people going through difficult problems."

Naturally, Walker is mostly interested in engineering and entrepreneurship, and he aspires to go down a "nonprofit route" and create devices that can help people. "But I’m also exploring the possibility of creating my own major since I have a ton of different interests,” Walker said.

His advice to students applying to universities is to be passionate about their studies and to work hard. For Walker, he is now free of the stress of applying to schools and the next challenge will be choosing which one to attend.