Teen accidentally films the moment she finds missed $104,000 scholarship offer in unopened college acceptance letter

A rising college freshman was “shocked and angry” when she discovered she had missed a huge scholarship offer from one of her top three schools — but now a happy ending has TikTok cheering.

TikToker @luvlyymadiii gained over 2.8 million views, 394,000 likes and 500 comments when she uploaded the surprising moment to her account — a moment she likely never intended to capture on camera.

While we’ve seen college students’ revelations go viral in the past — like the Harvard student who shocked TikTok when she revealed what her dining hall serves on an average night@luvlyymadiii‘s heart-stopping discovery is serving as an important PSA to high school graduates everywhere: Always open your acceptance letters. You never know what important information they might contain!

@luvlyymadiii, who has been treating her TikTok account as a sort of video diary, likely never expected to film a viral moment when she sat down to record for her April 29 entry.

According to @luvlyymadiii, she was cleaning out her closet of all her unopened college acceptance letters when she made a gut-wrenching discovery: a $104,000 scholarship offer to Maryville College, one of her top three school choices.

However, not wanting to incur debt from a large university, @luvlyymadiii had already chosen to attend a community college and had attended their acceptance ceremony — and the deadline to accept Maryville’s offer was one day away.

“You opened it a day before decision for a reason. Go and get that uni education w/ the scholarship!! It’ll be worth it!” one TikTok user, @astoldbycolette, urged her in the comments.

Thankfully, @luvlyymadiii followed up not long after with an update that thrilled TikTokers.


In her update, @luvlyymadiii informed anxious TikTokers that Maryville College had seen her now-viral video and had somehow managed to track her down.

“Basically, they said they were gonna make my dreams come true, and they’re gonna send me an official award offer letter to my Gmail,” she recalled, smiling into the camera. “So now I’m going to college, and I’m so excited!”

@luvlyymadiii then went on to to answer one of the top questions she received: How could she not have opened the acceptance letters she received from colleges she’d applied to?

“I had over, like, 300 letters come in, so it was impossible for me to open every single one because I was still doing a ton of school work and I had a job,” she explained. She also informed viewers in the comments that she’d been applying to schools since the end of her junior year, and had used waivers to pay for many of the application fees.

TikTokers were so happy for @luvlyymadiii — and very thankful to the college for not letting her miss out on such a huge opportunity.

“shoutout to the college for going out of their way for this,” TikTok user @wolff_2023 wrote.

Even Maryville College’s official TikTok account weighed in, commenting, “We love a happy ending!!! 🥹”

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