A college student lost a $100,000 scholarship because she forgot to open the letter. Then the college saw her viral video and made her dream come true.
TikTok: @luvlyymadiii
- A TikToker said she never opened a letter from her dream college offering her a scholarship.
- The video blew up, and even reached the college in question, which gave the story a happy ending.
- A representative from Maryville College told Insider they honored the original scholarship.
A TikToker who realized she'd overlooked an offer letter from one of her top three colleges received the six-figure scholarship anyway, after her distraught reaction went viral on the app.
On April 30, a TikToker who goes by @luvlyymadiii posted a video looking at a piece of paper, while an on-screen caption said she was going through her unopened college acceptance letters while she cleaned out her closet.
The video then zoomed into her shocked and angry-looking face as further on-screen captions said she'd just realized she had been offered a $104,000 scholarship from one of her top three colleges, but she had already decided to attend community college instead because she thought she couldn't afford the cost.
Over 5.6 million people viewed the upload which attracted hundreds of comments, many of which expressed dismay and were baffled as to why the TikToker hadn't gotten around to opening such an important letter.
Over a week later, on May 9, the TikToker returned with a much-anticipated update. In the video, which received a further 640,000 views, she explained she hadn't initially opened the letter because she'd received over 300 of them from colleges and said it was "impossible for me to open every single one of them" as she was busy doing school work and had a job at the time. In a follow-up comment she also wrote that she'd been applying for colleges since the middle of her junior year in high school, which explained the high number.
However, in the same upload, she said the school in question, Maryville College in Tennessee, had caught wind of the situation and called her up to say "they were gonna make my dreams come true" and the offer was still on the table. "I'm just so excited!" the TikToker said in the video.
Dr Alayne Bowman, vice president for admissions and financial aid at Maryville College, told Insider via an email exchange that she was the one who called up the TikToker, and not only did the college "honor her scholarship" they were also "thrilled to learn more about Madi and suggested some additional scholarships" which Bowman said the TikToker had applied for, and was awarded.
"We knew we could make this dream of hers come true," she said.
For more stories like this, check out coverage from Insider's Digital Culture team here.