| Please write an essay delineating the reasons why you believe you qualify for a Bigelow scholarship. | As I look back on my freshman self I find her unrecognizable. She is someone who lived in fear and control. Her environment was completely dependent on the rules she had created for herself. I truly believed then that I wouldn’t be able to survive college alone. I thought my eating disorder would consume me, the disease that gave me the control I felt I needed nearly took my life.
I have never been more grateful for the support system and the work I did that got me out. I was still a fully functioning student, athlete, coworker, and sister throughout my eating disorder. I maintained a 4.33 weighted GPA and worked my way up in leadership positions but my body was collapsing. By the start of my sophomore year I was told by doctors that I needed to enter an in-patient treatment facility. It was a wake up call. I learned to invest in my recovery. I learned I was capable of success despite my anorexia and once I learned to live without it I was capable of more. My junior year I became co-Editor-in-Chief of my school newspaper, began writing for The Oregonian as a student reporter, and planned my high school’s prom, negotiating budget contracts and running point on decoration set-up and venue communication. I regained the independence I’d lost and set a new course for myself.
My senior year has not been the same kind of success story. My parents divorced in January while both my sister and father dealt with ongoing mental health issues. The instability in my life both at home and financially made me question whether I would fall back into old patterns to find control. I didn’t. I refused to let myself return to the fear that I once lived in. While the eating disorder would give me the control I needed, it would destroy the path to my future I’d built. Instead, I threw myself into college applications, my community, and work. I rebuilt our school newspaper’s website, published another article for The Oregonian, and played varsity soccer while working every day when I didn't have practice.
Next year I will attend Boston University majoring in Journalism and Advertising in the College of Communications. I’ve made my love of storytelling a reality and a career path. I made BU a possibility, spending hours on the phone with the financial aid offices to appeal my aid, working 20+ hour weeks to cover partial tuition costs, and applying to countless scholarships. I made it.
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| Please answer the following three questions in the box below. | I will attend Boston University in the fall majoring in Journalism and Advertising. I was accepted to seven of the eight schools to which I applied including the University of Oregon Honors, Loyola University Chicago Honors, the University of Vermont, Fordham University, Syracuse University Leadership Scholars Program, The George Washington University Honors, and Boston University. I was rejected from Northwestern University.
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