'Humble' 16-Year-Old Accepted To 14 Colleges With $1.6M In Scholarships Makes Big Decision

LOS ANGELES (CBSLA) - A 16-year-old in Washington, D.C., who is graduating high school early has already decided what college he'll be attending this fall.

Curtis Lawrence III was accepted to 14 colleges -- including Harvard, Yale, Howard, Morehouse, Morgan and UC Berkeley -- and has received $1.6 million in scholarships for the fall.

Lawrence's mother, Malene Lawrence, says the process for preparing for college started when her son was in the seventh grade.

"His goal is to get a PhD and so we kind of helped him plan backwards and said these are the top schools in paleontology and that offer PhD programs," she tells WTTG.

Lawrence's parents are both instructors and instilled the importance of school into he and his younger brother, Corey, early on.

"We've taught them from an early age that education is key to opening up the opportunities and having access to things that they want to life," explains Curtis' father, Curtis Lawrence Jr.

At 14, Curtis attended classes at George Washington University.

"He's one of the most humble kids I have met. Being in college at 14, for him, he sees that as normal life," his father says.

Lawrence III says he was looking to study at a Historically Black College and University (HBCU).

"First, I started off thinking about what schools had good biology programs," he explained. "I started to look specifically at HBCUs because I want to have the HBCU experience and be surrounded by the people that are just like me who are not only Black but academically talented."

In the end, Lawrence announced to cheering family and friends that he'll be attending Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University (FAMU), a public HBCU in Tallahassee where he'll be double majoring in biology and computer science.

Curtis' younger brother, Corey, also plans to attend the GWU college program and hopes to follow in his big brother's footsteps at an HBCU, CBS affiliate WCTV reports.