personal statement
Hi! I'm applying for the Questbridge scholar program, and this is my first time writing a personal statement. I'm concerned its focusing to heavily on my mom, but I'm not quite sure how to focus it on me more without losing the integrity of the essay. Any help would be appreciated! Thanks!
Here's the prompt: We are interested in learning more about you and the context in which you have grown up, formed your aspirations, and accomplished your academic successes. Please describe the factors and challenges that have most shaped your personal life and aspirations. How have these factors helped you to grow?
What is your first day of kindergarten memory? Maybe it's picking out that brand new backpack with a matching lunchbox or buying 10 different colored notebooks when you're only going to use 3. Maybe it's regretting the breakfast sandwich you had earlier that isn't quite sitting well, as your mom drives closer to the school. For me, it was waking up before the sun did. It was putting on a horrendous fluorescent yellow safety vest and feeling as pretty as two pennies. It was walking through a desolate dirt lot filled with bright yellow buses and feeling special as if I had VIP backstage passes. Why? Because my mom was the bus driver.
Born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, my mother knows a thing about hardship. Being the last one out of her five siblings to immigrate to the U.S., she had trouble building a life for herself, especially with her limited English. Things worsened when her relationship with my father fell through, and she suddenly had to raise two kids on her own. But my mom did not crumble. She did not give up or give in to easy way outs. Instead, she got herself a job in a nursing home despite her accent. Despite her fear, she got into a car and taught herself to drive. Holding onto her faith in God, she worked long hours and still came home, ready to cook my brother and me a meal, ready to spend time with us. I never saw her cry, never saw her complain. She kept pushing through, and because of her, one of the earliest lessons I learned was perseverance.
As a kid, I never understood why my friends looked at me so strangely whenever I pridefully announced that my mother was a bus driver. To me, it was a thousand times better than her nursing home job. I'd see her in the morning and end my day riding that bus home with her- not to mention she was home during vacations. At that time, I thought that being a bus driver was all that plus a bag of chips, and I decided that I would become one just like my mother. But that's not what she wanted for my future, because behind every moring trip was exhaustion. Behind every completed route was an insult from a disrespectful child. My mother doesn't want that for my future. So she enforces the one thing she knew could give me more opportunities than she had- education.
Every night, she'd sit down with us and make sure our homework was done. If we were struggling with something, she'd do her very best to explain it to us, even if she never learned it herself. B's were barely acceptable, and God forbid C's stain report cards. I felt like she was holding me to higher expectations than everyone else, and didn't always understand why. But whereas before I felt angry, I feel nothing but appreciation now. I realize that because of her pressure, I know how to work hard. Because of her insistence, I know to keep my eyes on the prize. Because of her Love, I have the chance to a brighter future than she had.
Patience, above all, is one of the biggest gifts my mother gave me, however. Despite living better in America, my mother never forgot her roots. How alone she felt in Haiti while her mother was away working. So, on top of driving a bus, she also fosters children. Each one is different, and some are difficult, but my mom treats them with the same amount of love she shows my brother and me. And helping my mother as she sacrifices herself to each kid and helps them the same way she's helping me, has given me tolerance towards people, and I'm forever grateful to all my mother has taught me. Why? Because she is my hero.