Girl’s Harvard University admissions essay about losing her mum inspires millions

An 18-year-old has gone viral on TikTok after revealing how a deeply personal essay secured her place at one of the world’s top universities.

Abigail Mack was able to impress the admissions board at Harvard with her emotional piece on losing a loved-one.

She was accepted to the globally renowned school, which has a notoriously low acceptance rate of 3.43 per cent, as well as other prestigious colleges such as Northwestern and Notre Dame – thanks largely to her letter.

In a series of clips, the teenager read out exerpts in which she detailed how living without her mother had impacted her life.

In the essay’s introduction Abigail explained why she hates the letter “s” in “parents” because it reminds her of the parent she lost.

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She wrote: “I hate the letter ‘s’. Of the 164,777 words with ‘s,’ I only grapple with one.

“To condemn an entire letter because of its use .0006 percent of the time sounds statistically absurd, but that one case changed 100 percent of my life.

“I used to have two parents, but now I have one, and the ‘s’ in ‘parents’ isn’t going anywhere.”

She continued: “‘S’ follows me, I can’t get through a day without being reminded that while my friends went out to dinner with their parents, I ate with my parent.

“As I write this essay, there is a blue line under the word ‘parent’ telling me to check my grammar; even Grammarly assumes that I should have parents, but cancer doesn’t listen to edit suggestions.

“I won’t claim that my situation is as unique as one in 164,777, but it is still an exception to the rule — an outlier. The world isn’t meant for this special case.”

Abigail described how she found ways to cope with the loss of her mother to cancer

In a second video, Abigail explained how she tried to distract herself from her loss by taking up extracurricular activities.

“You can’t have dinner with your parent...if you’re too busy to have family dinner,” she said.

“I couldn’t fill the loss that ‘s’ left in my life, but I could at least make sure I didn’t have to think about it. There were so many things in my life I couldn’t control, so I controlled what I could — my schedule.”

However, Abigail then stopped doing all these different activities and noticed she particularly enjoyed, politics, academics and theatre.

She then described how she then began “chasing a double ‘s’: passion.”

Rather than try to distract herself, Abigail pursued callings that would motivate her.

She concluded her essay: “‘S’ got me moving, but it hasn’t kept me going, I don’t seek out sadness, so “s” must stay on the sidelines, and until I am completely ready, motivation is more than enough for me.”

Thousands of admirers have commented on her videos, which have racked up millions of views and likes.

One person wrote: “So this is what a great writer looks like.”

“This sounds like it should be narrated over a movie. So good,” another commented.

Someone else said: “There’s one thing I know: both of your parents are so, so proud of you.”

A few days later, Abigail uploaded another TikTok where she revealed to her 100,000 followers that she had been accepted into Harvard (you can watch her reaction here).

Her story is an inspiring example to others on how it is possible to live with grief and look towards a bright future.