Talented Chicago twins earn places at 56 colleges, $1.6 million in total scholarships
Talented Chicago twins earn places at 56 colleges, $1.6 million in total scholarships
As well as their impressive haul of offers, 19-year-olds Deprice and Shaprice Hunt, from Chicago, Illinois, also boast a perfect attendance record and have received a total of 48 awards during high school.
Shaprice, who earned $1.3 million in scholarships, got into 35 colleges, with two of them offering her a full scholarship and five scouting her to play basketball.
She wants to go to either Eastern Illinois University or Illinois State University to dual major in education and psychology.
Youth activist Deprice, who wants to either be an actor, television star or work in politics, was accepted by 27 colleges and earned $300,000 in scholarships, including two full scholarships.
He said his dream school is HBCU Morehouse College and said he wants to study performing arts and political science.
Deprice, a student at Uplift Community High School, said when he got his first acceptance letter he was ‘really shocked and amazed’ and it spurred him to apply for even more colleges.
He told Daily Mail Online: ‘I was really eager to collect more so I decided to go on a rampage to apply for as many [colleges] as I could.
‘Once we started doing it [college applications] and we received a lot of acceptance letters in the mail we were really shocked because we got into lots of schools we didn’t know we could get into.’
He said their mother was their ‘motivator’ but the twins, who live with their mom and grandmother – their father was killed when he was young – were also inspired by rivalry.
‘Our older brother he’s in college right now, we’re in competition with him. We wanted to get the most. Me and my sister used to always argue back and forth about who’s the smartest but obviously she won, I’m proud of her,’ he said.
Although he said the twins were not aware of their own potential, Deprice said their mother always was.
He said: ‘My mom she always knew that we had it in us. She used to tell us “you’ll be able to go to good colleges” she knew “my kids have something good going on in the future”.
‘Our mom was out motivator and my grandma used to sit in the kitchen when we got home from school and say “you’ve got another letter, you’ve got another letter” and get all excited.’
Deprice, who is working in a grocery store to save up for starting college, said he wants to inspire people from all backgrounds to go to college.
His advice to other teenagers, he said, is not to give up on their dreams.
He said: ‘Don’t stress it, don’t give up in the early stages, just continue to do what you’re doing see where it takes you…
‘Don’t give up because you’re not getting noticed for it, just continue to do it because everything’s not about being noticed.
Shaprice told Huffington Post: ‘Never give up. Picture your future. Not only to make yourself proud but make your family proud.’
Principal Femi Skanes at Al Raby High School praised Shaprice as a ‘dream’ student, telling Inside Edition: ‘She’s internally motivated…you won’t even know how much work she’s put into something.’
Writing on Facebook, Deprice said: ‘As seniors we raise over 1.3 million dollars in scholarships, 56 acceptance letters, 48 awards throughout high school, and a 100 per cent attendance rate.’
Alongside a picture of himself with his acceptance letters, he wrote: ‘They only find the bad in us.
‘Statics shows that there’s the same chances of me being killed with or without a gun.
‘So If I die today they only found the good in me (a threat to society).’
