Twins Offered Combined $1.6 Million in Scholarships After Being Accepted to 56 Colleges

Chicago twins Shaprice and Deprice Hunt have a heartwarming tale to tell.

A twin brother and sister in Chicago have been offered a combined $1.6 million in scholarships after getting accepted into an astonishing 56 colleges.

Shaprice and Deprice Hunt, who are 19, both started applying for college this year like so many high school students, but when the acceptances started to roll in they were both hooked.

But even more than the rush of racking up wins, the twins told InsideEdition.com that they wanted to make sure their mother wouldn't have to sacrifice for them to get an education.

"I was really eager to go to college because my older brother went to college," Deprice said. "But I didn't want my mother to have to struggle to pay for three kids in college."

Deprice joined a group at Uplift Community High School called One Goal, which is devoted to helping students go to college. 

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"Once I got accepted to one, I was so excited," the honor student said. "So I just started started collecting them."

Deprice ended up getting into more than 20 schools, he said. Out of those, he was offered scholarships at several, including Morehouse College in Atlanta, where he thinks he'd like to go.

While Deprice posted photos of himself on social media showing off his many acceptance letters, he's even more proud of his twin sister. He admits she was offered around 90 percent of the scholarship money amassed between them.

Shaprice, more the athlete of the two, was offered basketball scholarships at several of the 35 schools that accepted her.

"Shaprice is the student any principal would dream about," her principal at Al Raby High School, Femi Skanes, told IE.com. "She's internally motivated...you won't even know how much work she's put into something."

Principal Skanes said she hasn't seen a student as motivated as Shaprice in years and can see the rising star making a career for herself in education.

"She has a lot of respect for her educators," Skanes said. "She's the type of kid to turn around and give back to her community. But the sky is the limit for Shaprice."

Like Deprice, Shaprice wants to make the next four years as easy on their mother as possible.

"I want to make sure my mom doesn't pay a lot," she told InsideEdition.com.

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As such, Shaprice said she's likely to stick close to home and play ball in one of several Illinois universities where she was offered a scholarship.

Both Shaprice and Deprice were able to apply to so many schools in part thanks to fee waivers. 

Deprice said it also helped that both his and Shaprice's schools offered one period per day where just to apply to schools and scholarships. "And I used my time wisely," he laughed.

As he awaits the fall, Deprice said he intends to keep his job at an area grocery store and save up for the many expenses he anticipates will come with the new school year.

He also hopes he and his sister have set a positive example for other teens, especially from Chicago, where he says the news too often covers only the negative side of youth rather than uplifting tales like his own.

"Not even race-wise," he said. "I want to show that good things can come from kids here in Chicago, black, white, Latino, whatever."

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