New Orleans high schooler scores big with boatload of college acceptance letters, scholarships

Antoinette Love kept her focus on the books through her teen years and now it's paying off in the form of millions in scholarship dollars and more than 100 college acceptance letters

Megan Sims

Apr 25, 2019

Scholarship — Antoinette Love, a New Orleans high school senior has gained acceptance into more than 100 colleges and millions in scholarhip money. (WDSU-TV)

For Antoinette Love, life has been about beating the odds.

She survived a premature birth to teenage parents, weighing over four pounds. She also survived a vicious dog attack at age 2. Fast forward more than a decade and a half, and she’s beating even more odds with acceptance letters to dozens of colleges and millions of dollars in scholarship money.

Love, 18, a senior at the International High School of New Orleans is garnering national attention after the tremendous accomplishment. According to the New Orleans Times-Picayune, she has her pick of 115 colleges and $3.7 million in scholarship offers.

The teenager manages to work while balancing a 3.5 grade point average and college classes at Delgado Community college. She has been described by the head of her school as a “hardworking scholar,” and is a part of several honor societies, including the National Honor Society, the National English Honor Society and the Rho Kappa National Social Studies Honor Society.

Love’s mother Yolanda told the Times-Picayune that in addition to all of her academic obligations, she helps raise her four siblings, including a 15-year-old brother that lives with cystic fibrosis.

“We have so much going on in our lives to where this is that one moment where it’s something good and something positive, not only for our family but for the city, too, to show what kind of kids New Orleans has,” she said.

Love had help with obtaining her high number of acceptance letters through family and a college counselor who helped her identify application fee waivers. She also said she used the College Common App and Common Black College Application to apply to multiple colleges with one application.

She said she will make her final college decision by May 1 and plans on majoring in elementary education in the fall. And though Love has a lot of scholarship offers under belt, she and her family are hoping she receives a full-ride to relieve the family of financial stress.