Oklahoma Native Teaches Students How To Win Scholarships After Receiving Over A Million Dollars In Scholarships

MUSKOGEE, Oklahoma – News 6

An Oklahoma native who received more than one million dollars in college scholarships is back in her hometown teaching high schoolers how to do the same.

In 2019,  Raylynn Thompson was a Muskogee High School Senior who had received 64 college acceptance letters and more than one million dollars in scholarships.

“You really have to keep applying to as many as you see and never stop because you never know where you are going to land,” said Raylynn Thompson, a current student at Alcorn State University in Lorman, Mississippi.

“I am a biology, pre-med major and I am a biochemistry major,” said Thompson, “I want to go to medical school to be a research physician. I want to research different kinds of foods and herbs and see if we can work towards healing the body.”

Her mom says Raylynn came home from school wanting to give back.

”There were some people in my community who remembered my name and were asking for help as well. I was like, “Well, if my family needs me and people in my community need me, why not just come together and help everybody?” said Thompson.

She partnered up with a friend from college and together they hold scholarship symposiums, teaching high school students how to get as much scholarship money as possible.  They also talk to students about how they can raise their GPAs, their ACT scores and stand out on applications.

“I was fighting with my ACT score, trying to raise it. That last time I took it I raised it by one point, from a 23 to a 24 and I went from ten thousand dollars in scholarships to 15 thousand. That one point really matters, and I don’t want kids to give up because they think their score is too low,” said Thompson.

Raylynn Thompson