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‘All the Hard Work Was Worth It.’ Watch This 16-Year-Old Lose It After Learning He Got In to Harvard

2 minute read

A video of a Louisiana 16-year-old and his classmates exploding with joy after finding out about his acceptance to Harvard University has gone viral.

The heartwarming footage, which has already received more than 150,000 retweets and more than five million views, shows high school senior Ayrton Little surrounded by friends as he checks online to see whether he’s been accepted to his dream college (he’s even wearing a Harvard hoodie).

The group then bursts into excited screams and cheers after learning that Ayrton has achieved a place at the prestigious university. “All the hard work was worth it. I got accepted to Harvard at 16!!” the teenager posted on his social media account, along with three tearful emojis.

According to Today, Ayrton had skipped a grade and joined his older brother, Alex, in the year above at TM Landry College Prep in Breaux Bridge. It was a proud week for the Little family: On Dec. 9, Alex found out that he had been accepted to Stanford University. He posted a similarly uplifting video on Twitter:

WBUR-FM reports that Alex was the first student at his school to be awarded a place at Stanford. “Those goals we set for each other kind of caused us to become real competitive and push each other to do the best we can,” said Alex, of his and his brother’s success.

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Write to Kate Samuelson at kate.samuelson@time.com