Honors College Student Chooses Georgia State to Stay Close to Care

ATLANTA-When Charlaye Dennis considered what mattered most in a college, Georgia State University's location made it the right fit.

"Georgia State is in the middle of everything for me," she said.

Dennis lives with sickle cell disease, an inherited blood disorder that requires medical appointments and sometimes hospital stays.

"[Georgia State] is right by my doctors. I'm close to home in case I have a sickle cell flare up, and I'm close to opportunity," Dennis said.

Dennis traces her goal of becoming a physician to an event at Emory University School of Medicine she attended at 16, where she heard adults living with sickle cell disease describe what it was like to transition from pediatric to adult care.

Compared with her own care at Children's Healthcare of Atlanta, their stories showed her how differently patients with the same disease can be treated.

"That's when I knew I wanted to become a hematologist-oncologist," she said, "and help make sure patients with sickle cell disease receive the quality of care they deserve."

She later interned on the hematology floor at Grady Memorial Hospital - work that, she said, reinforced the kind of physician she wants to become: one who listens to patients and advocates for better care.

This fall, the Miller Grove High School graduate is entering Georgia State's Honors College, planning to pursue medicine and arriving with more than $25,000 in scholarship support.

Dennis began earning college credit through dual enrollment during her junior year of high school, starting with college algebra that summer.

"I just took enough for me to get like 16 credits," Dennis said.

Those classes put her, by her own estimate, at least a semester ahead as she begins her first year.

Dennis has been a member of the East DeKalb Boys & Girls Club since she was 6 years old. She mentored younger members and helped organize a College and Career Boot Camp that connected graduating seniors with more than 300 scholarship opportunities.

As an intern with the DeKalb County Board of Commissioners, Dennis helped pitch a mobile shower program for people experiencing homelessness, according to WSB Radio. She told the board's Finance Committee that the plan could restore dignity, improve public health and connect people with services that already exist but are not always accessible.

The Finance Committee voted unanimously to propose the pilot as a 2027 budget amendment, the station reported.

Dennis also emerged from an initial pool of more than 500 applicants nationwide and advanced to a second round of the Panda Cares Great Futures Scholarship selection process. The award is part of the Panda Cares Scholars Program, a partnership between the Panda Cares Foundation and Boys & Girls Clubs of America.

She ultimately became one of just 15 Boys & Girls Club members nationwide to receive the $25,000 scholarship. She also received the Annexstad Family Foundation Leaders for Tomorrow Scholarship to help cover her four years at Georgia State. The MTS Sickle Cell Foundation awarded Dennis another $1,000 through its Warrior on the Rise scholarship.

"I feel responsible for making sure these opportunities don't stop with me," Dennis said. "I want to become a physician and eventually create opportunities for other people the way others have invested in me."

- Story by André Walker. Photo Credit: Raven Schley.