- A TikToker said she never opened a letter that offered her a scholarship to her dream college.
- The video blew up, and even reached the college in question, which gave the story a happy ending.
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 of herself looking at a piece of paper. The on-screen caption said she had found something while going through a pile of unopened college-acceptance letters.
@luvlyymadiii do you really want to know where i was april 29th? #greenscreenvideo #fyp #foryou #foryoupage #april29th #taylorswift #theerastour #universitylife ♬ original sound - kyra
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. She said she decided at the time to attend community college instead because she couldn't afford the cost.
More than 5.6 million people viewed the upload, which attracted hundreds of comments. Many comments expressed dismay and confusion as to why the TikToker hadn't gotten around to opening such an important letter.
The TikToker returned with a much-anticipated update on May 6. In the video, which received a further 640,000 views, she said that she hadn't initially opened the letter because she'd received more than 300 of them from colleges. The TikToker said it was "impossible for me to open every single one of them" at the time because she was busy doing school work and had a job.
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.
@luvlyymadiii Replying to @αshanti @Maryville College love u guys #fyp #foryou #foryoupage #greenscreenvideo #healing #college #unilife #collegelife ♬ original sound - madi!!!!
However, in the same upload, she said the school in question, Maryville College in Tennessee, had caught wind of the situation and called her to say that "they were gonna make my dreams come true" and that the offer was still on the table. "I'm just so excited!" the TikToker said in the video.
Alayne Bowman, the vice president for admissions and financial aid at Maryville College, told Insider in an email exchange that she was the one who told the TikToker the college was happy to "honor her scholarship." She said the college was also "thrilled to learn more about Madi and suggested some additional scholarships" that the TikToker 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.