It may sound cliché, but the person who has had the biggest impact on my life is my mom. I am a high school student, and for the entire 12 years of my schooling, I have attended a cyber charter school, which means that I spend most of the school year at home. My mom is a stay-at-home mom with a disability, and since I started school, not a day has gone by without her at home and in my life. In my younger grades, my mom was very involved in my education. She assigned my homework using the curriculum that my school provided, graded my homework, and taught me how to read and write. She encouraged me to read daily and inspired my deep love of reading by allowing me to pick out books at the library every week and practice reading with me. This led me to become an avid reader, spending hours a day simply reading, and often finishing books in one or two days. My love of reading, which has always centered the most around fiction, fueled my imagination, which would eventually be one of the biggest aspects of my life that pushed me to write fiction. Early on in school, when I had to write papers, my mom would make me rewrite them until I had written the paper error-free. This used to frustrate me to no end—I could sometimes write a project three or even four times in a row. However, she ultimately helped me by correcting spelling mistakes and handing the paper back for me to redo. She taught me how to write better and how to structure my sentences well and creatively. By forcing me to only submit a well-written project, and encouraging me to do my best, my mom helped me become a better writer. My mom has also encouraged me to draw and paint, even when, looking back on it, I wasn’t all that good. Because of her support, I now pursue art almost daily and am growing in skill all the time. Not only that, but I’m able to tie all of my creativity together to draw out concepts and characters for the stories I write. Because of my mom’s influence in my life, I’m a high achiever, and always put my best into everything that I do. With her help, I overcame my struggles with math, and now consistently achieve an A+ in math. Not only that but because of my mom’s early encouragement, I’ve written a 500+ page novel that I plan on releasing after I graduate high school. Because of my mom, I’ve become a responsible and kind person who takes an interest in art, music, and debate. Because of the interest she took in my education, I am one of the best readers in my class, apply myself, get good grades, and still read avidly. Without my mom, I doubt I would apply myself as much, and I wouldn’t be as good of a writer, reader, student, or person. In short, thank you to my mom, and thank you for your time and consideration in reading my application.

In my community, there are multiple schools; a high school, two middle schools, an elementary school, and several pre-schools. When you drive around my town, schools are obvious. But what is nearly invisible to see are the hundreds of students in my county who cyber school, one of which is me. Late in the 2023-2024 school year, one of my teachers brought a proposed law to the attention of my class. The budget was set to enter the PA Senate, which would have devastating impacts on cyber and charter schools. The budget would set a flat rate of 8,000 dollars per student (this bill is known as Pennsylvania House Bill 1422)—a rate that would cut the funding of cyber schools by between 40% to 60% depending on the school. While the budget was touted as something to make things fair, it would disproportionally affect disabled and underprivileged students, as well as students with other special medical needs and those who had faced bullying in their previous brick-and-mortar school, which includes LGBTQ+ and minority students. In my school specifically, minority enrollment is 50%, and 42.7% of students are financially disadvantaged. Although the issue mattered greatly to me in part because I attend a cyber charter school that would be directly impacted by the bill, it also mattered to me because the bill was unfair. It claimed to be equitable, but it would actually be impacting people who needed it the least. For example, my neighbor across the street attends the same school as I do, and is a special needs student. The local high school in my area doesn’t possess the same services that my school and others have, services that allow for every student to get an education, something that has always been treasured in my household. The bill’s potential impact on LGBTQ students also was a catalyst for my action. My twin is transgender, and many of the students in my school have said how cyber school has allowed them to focus on their education, rather than being bullied. With the bill already passed in the Pennsylvania House, and the knowledge of who the bill would affect, I knew that I had to take action and stand up for what I knew was right. I handwrote letters to four different representatives in the Pennsylvania Senate, including staunch supporters of the bill. I used my voice to stand up not just for my school, but for other cyber and charter schools that support minority and economically disadvantaged kids. I also used my voice to send a letter to my governor, Josh Shapiro, who also supported the bill, in order to let him know that House Bill 1422, and bills like it, would negatively affect students in Pennsylvania, and disproportionately impact disabled, special education, and minority group students who rely on cyber and charter schools. According to https://legiscan.com/PA/votes/HB1422/2023 (if the link does not work, the website is ‘legiscan.com’, select Pennsylvania, search House Bill 1422), the PA Senate has not yet voted on the bill (as of 7/29/24), but I believe that my voice has had an impact on the members of the Pennsylvania Senate, and even if the bill does pass, I don't regret making my voice heard and standing up for students who tend to be overlooked in legislation, besides to lower funding, and I don't regret standing up for equity in schools and the right to every student's right to school choice, especially where it would negatively and disproportionately affect disabled, minority, economically challenged, and students of a different gender. Thank you very much for your time and consideration.

When I was fifteen, teachers and peers in my classes started to talk about looking into colleges. Initially, the notion appeared unappealing; but as I grew older, I began to see the reason my dad always stressed how important college is. Realizing that going to college would enable me to acquire valuable skills for my professional life was incredible, and it sparked in me a strong desire to continue learning and gain an advantage that I wouldn't be able to obtain elsewhere. However, the cost of college made me start to reconsider my options. I knew I wouldn't be able to afford the education on my own, and my family wouldn't be able to support me. This realization caused me to initially shy away from college, however, my parents' encouragement inspired me to explore scholarships as a way to make college a possibility. Therefore, because of my family’s finances and the expense of college, receiving this scholarship would be extraordinarily meaningful for me. While the college I plan to attend is considered cheap, it’s still expensive. This scholarship would aid in my dream of getting a marketing degree by helping to relieve the pressure of paying for college. By relieving some of the stress of finances, I would be better able to focus on my education. This would help me focus on getting the grades I need to graduate and become a first-generation college student in my family. This would set up my future for success, and would also set a precedent in my family that could help allow future generations to get into college. While I’m in college, I want to establish an entrepreneurial business as a side hustle, and make it my main job once I’m out of college. With the skills earned from my degree, I would be able to expand my reach on social media. This influence would allow me to give back to disadvantaged kids in my community. Specifically, I would want to use my influence to inspire kids to explore their imagination through creative writing. One idea I have to accomplish this is by creating an outreach program. This program would involve collaborating with my local school and organizing a contest with a writing prompt. The concept idea that I have is to evaluate entries based on their creativity, effort, and originality, while also considering their potential for improvement. The ten who responded best to the prompt would receive mentoring through weekly online sessions over the course of a month. The ten who responded best to the prompt would receive mentoring through weekly sessions over the course of five weeks or so. In this way, I would be able to help kids receive mentoring that would inspire them to keep writing. I would also aim to foster an interest in writing in kids by awarding writing sets for students to write their ideas and stories in. While this may seem a bit specific for something that would happen after college, I truly aspire to do this because writing is my passion, and I want to foster that love in future writers. This scholarship is so important for me because it would allow me to take advantage of an opportunity that my dad didn’t and that my mom was unable to have because of her financial situation, which is to go to college, get a degree, use that degree to further my professional goals, and use that success as a platform to help foster imagination and writing skills in kids.

Marvel’s Spiderman has always been an inspiration; for me, he’s represented the idea that anyone can make a difference, even nerdy teenagers who still have a lot to figure out. Spiderman has inspired my creativity and writing and helped improve my art skills. Being very attached to the character, I would say that Tom Holland is my favorite Spiderman. In my opinion, Holland’s representation of an awkward teen trying to prove himself in a world full of much more experienced heroes while also grappling with life outside of the suit is both convincing and relatable. Holland’s representation of being a teenager, especially an outcast in high school, is something that resonated with me while watching and re-watching the trilogy. Although science isn’t my area of expertise, I’m interested in things that most people don’t know a lot about, specifically birds of prey, history, and current world events. While Holland’s Peter Parker is liable to start getting technical with science, I can often go on talking about my own interests, sometimes to the point of technicality. While most of my friends either share my interests or have grown used to me talking about them, I sometimes can go off around strangers and confuse them. While that’s something I have in common with Holland’s Peter Parker, I also learned from his character, especially in No Way Home, that having an interest that others don’t is special, and that it’s something to celebrate about yourself. I loved Tom Holland’s version of Spiderman the most because of how it inspired me. I’ve loved Marvel for a very long time, and while I did watch the previous Spiderman movies (the Maguire trilogy and the two Garfield movies), the most recent iteration of Spiderman is the one that inspired me the most. It encouraged me to write and express my creativity through drawings and fiction, as well as comics. Watching Tom Holland’s acting in the newest trio of Spiderman movies helped me learn how to better write character development. From a story-oriented point of view, I truly appreciate how Tom Holland’s Spiderman interacts with other superheroes as he does in the comics, and I also truly enjoyed watching his awkwardness around other, more experienced heroes. As someone who casually reads Marvel and Spiderman comics, I found it very exciting how Peter Parker got to meet the likes of Dr. Strange, Bucky Barnes, and Iron Man. I also loved the dynamic between Tony Stark and Peter; which, in my opinion, highlighted Spiderman’s youth, as well as his need for guidance. It also provided a character arc as Peter set out to prove that he’s a hero in his own right and doesn’t need Stark to save him. Watching Holland’s Peter Parker mature over time, going from a very inexperienced hero to working with the Avengers and fighting Thanos, was both compelling and exciting as a Marvel fan. Seeing Holland’s Parker interact with Mysterio, who managed to fool the entire world until the very end, was incredible. I also found it very compelling watching Spiderman deal with the aftermath of the world finding out his name, and ultimately maturing enough to make a sacrifice that saved his universe. The character development of Tom Holland’s Spiderman may not have been as intimately tied to Uncle Ben’s death as previous Spidermen’s, but I felt that it truly expressed the message that with great power, comes great responsibility. Because of how relatable his character was, the interactions between Spiderman and other heroes, and the evolution and growth of his character, Tom Holland’s Spiderman is my favorite iteration of the character.