Scholarship Essays for College Admissions

A good role model can change a live by setting an example. The example can be either good or bad. My sister has been my role model for as long as I can remember. I have always wanted to be exactly like her, but as I have grown, I have come to learn that being just like her would be one of the biggest mistakes of my life.

At the age of fourteen my mother and my sister, Judy, moved from Orange County,
California to Fort Collins, Colorado. My sister was furious. She felt that my mother had ruined her life. To take revenge on her, she stared to ” act out.” She stayed out late, hung around with the “wrong crowd,” and dabbled in drugs and alcohol. By taking this “revenge,” she has taught me that no matter how bad my life may seem during high school, problems with friends and boys are nothing compared to the physical and emotional damage that drugs can cause.

When my sister was nineteen years old, she gave birth to my niece Jessica. She wasn’t
married and was unemployed. After struggling with single parenthood, and refusing to ask for help, she got a job at Wal-Mart. She lived in a little apartment, and never had any extra money. She has told me how much she regrets having a child so young. She never got to enjoy college life, or carefree twenties. Her experience as a teenage mother has helped me to see that being careless once can lead to a life lessons that I don’t want to experience to learn.

My sister’s determination to succedd has also taught me never to let life get me down. After four years of single parenthood, she met my brother-in-law, Steve. Together they have built a happy life. Steve has a job with the United States Post Office, and my sister opened ABC & 123 Daycare and Preschool. She has also gone back to school to become a Registered Nurse. No matter what life has thrown at her Judy has never given up.

As I have gotten older, Judy has said that she “felt a responsibility” to tell me and my brother about her mistakes. She said, ” We can only learn by example, whether good or bad.” Her abuses of drugs and teen pregnancy have helped me to see, that in most respects, I don’t want to be just like my sister. In many ways my sister is the person I would least like to be like. However, her ability to rise above adversity and recover from horrible choices are two qualities that I hope I can emulate if I ever need to.