Seniors rise to huge challenge at one ACPSD high school

GRANITEVILLE, S.C. (WJBF)- The 2024-2025 school year is almost over and seniors across the CSRA are preparing to take their next steps. One local high school issued a huge challenge to its seniors at the beginning of the school year, and they’ve nearly completed it.

For years the administration at Midland Valley High School has challenged the top 20 seniors to apply to at least 20 different colleges. This year they switched it up with a much bigger challenge– apply to and be accepted to schools in all 50 states.

“It was just a matter of us knowing how great our students were. And we just wanted everybody else to know about this, too. And it’s born in competition. We want to do better than everybody else and be better than every high school, because our students are as good as any and better than most,” explained Sheldon Higgenbottom, MVHS Principal.

The goal is to encourage seniors to apply to schools outside of South Carolina and broaden their horizons. It’s an exercise that has motivated these seniors.

“I just thought it was pretty cool. When I think about applying to college, I just think of in-state or maybe a couple of states away. But the whole United States is pretty cool. I want to get in on it. I would say thinking about the opportunities that are that are outside of state, you know, I know the state pretty well. I don’t want to say I know everything, but pretty familiar with it. So seeing what’s out there is kind of exciting and new,” said Lawrence Valdez, a MVHS Senior.

This years crop of seniors at MVHS are exceptional. Valdez, along with his twin brother, Logan, are in the top three students in their class. Jonathan Dixon is graduating a year early, and now holds the record for the highest SAT score in the history of MVHS- a 1540 out of 1600. Bella Cowart has gotten into several out of state schools including Baylor University. and Robert Morris University in Pennsylvania.

One senior has applied to and been accepted to schools in 18 states. She says the challenge and other tools available to seniors helped a lot in the application and decision process.

“The using the common app, which we use here. It showed me different schools in different states. And like I was able to go and research them and see if that school possibly interests me so that I could apply through these different states to get mine, you know, opportunities brought in to see if I might want to go out of state,” explained Lylah Davis, a MVHS Senior.

So far Midland Valley seniors have been accepted to colleges in 48 states. They are still waiting to hear from colleges in Idaho and Maryland. Higgenbottom plans to announce the final results as well as the class’s scholarship total for the year at graduation in May. He hopes to beat last year’s total scholarship amount of more than $20 million.