Jayme Anderson wore so many medals to his Forest Hill High School graduation, his mom, Angella, could hear him clanking as he walked across the stage. 

The 18-year-old is something of a collector for academic achievements. At his home in south Jackson, Anderson has a coffee table’s worth of awards: Trophies, badges, plaques, rainbow-colored cords. 

And a binder stuffed full of college acceptances. 

All told, Anderson applied to more than 600 colleges and was admitted to exactly 582, racking up more than $10 million in scholarship offers. 

The eyepopping feat, which went viral earlier this summer, was driven by curiosity, free time, a desire to go out-of-state for college and a competitive streak. 

He also wanted to be an inspiration to other JPS students, who he said are often misunderstood and stereotyped, even by fellow Jacksonians. 

“I have to say that when most people think about JPS kids, they think about criminals, bad people,” he said, “but at the end of the day, the majority of the people at JPS, they are not that.” 

Who are they? 

“Brilliant, intelligent, inspiring,” he said. “They actually want to do better for themselves.” 

Don’t get Anderson wrong: There were challenges. During his junior year, afternoon gun violence at a nearby convenience store kept forcing Forest Hill to go on lockdown. He said he missed a lot of AP U.S. History instruction that year. 

At one point, Angella thought about putting Anderson in private school. She was frustrated he kept getting marked absent when she knew he wasn’t. The school told her it was an attendance record system issue.

She had a high school picked out – a Christian school on Siwell Road that, like many in the metro area, originated as a segregation academy. But the day she told Anderson she was at her wit’s end, he asked her if he could stay at Forest Hill. 

Anderson didn’t want to start over at a school he didn’t know, with teachers who might not support him. The two agreed that despite hardships, he had blossomed in JPS. 

“I wanted to continue growing,” he said. “The teachers that I had, my counselors, they motivated me to keep on pushing myself.” 

Forest Hill was where, in 9th grade biology class, Anderson decided he wanted to be an oncologist after learning that cancer is caused “by the cells growing out of control.” It was where he joined band and learned to play the oboe, a challenging instrument that he chose in part because it made him more attractive to colleges. 

And it’s where he got an opportunity to take dual enrollment classes at Hinds Community College. 

“It actually taught me how to study better,” he said. 

Anderson’s first anatomy exam, he scored a 79. Then he buckled down and got an 85 on his second.

By his senior year, Anderson had racked up so many credit hours, he had a lighter classload and a lot of free time. With encouragement from his guidance counselor, Monica Dickerson, he used those hours to apply to as many colleges as he could. 

“He was sitting outside of our office, and my email just started dinging, dinging, dinging,” with requests to send his transcript to one college after another, Dickerson recalled. “So I walked out of my office and I said, ‘Jayme.’ I said, ‘Now listen, I know I told you to apply to schools, but I don’t want you just to go crazy.’” 

He was undeterred. Every now and then, he’d ask Dickerson to print him off some more fee waivers, so he didn’t have to pay for the applications.

He applied to colleges in all 50 states, and even to a few he found on Indeed.com. 

“I think his motive was to get a lot of scholarships,” Angella said. “At one point when I talked to him, he was over $5 million, and he was like, ‘Momma, I’m gonna get the most in scholarships.’” 

Anderson had initially planned to attend Stanford University, but earlier this month, he had a change of plans. He enrolled in Pennsylvania State University — in part, his mom said, because it snows there, and he wanted to get out of the southern heat. 

“That was it, point blank,” his mom said. “It was the cold. It was the air.” 

They made the trip to State College earlier this week, taking two cars packed full of the usual necessities — laundry detergent, a mini fridge, boxes of bedding, clothes and lots of pens. 

Anderson also brought the award that meant the most to him: His associate’s degree from Hinds.