The Great American Model & Talent Search

Ever since I was a little girl I've always loved dressing up & posing in front of the mirror & for pictures. When I was 10 years old I was featured in a Hometown Buffet Commercial. The end. Lol. Yup that's how it feels. It feels like my path to stardom just completely ended. At 14 years old I have been attending "model & talent searches" and nothing good has ever come out of them. Sure all of them said that I have "star quality". Sure all of them said I can make it in the business. But my family never had the thousands of dollars these companies wanted to make it happen for me, or TRY to make it happen. So now at 21 years old I tried again for my chance to become a somebody. On Tuesday I had heard on the radio about a model & talent search that would be done at a local hotel. So last minute I attended to see what's up. I admit I wasn't looking my best. The night before I had gotten about 3 hours of sleep from studying all night & I had just come out from a Microbiology lab looking like crap. I was wearing sweats & a Hello Kitty shirt haha. Anyway all they had me do was read a line for a Coca Cola commercial & so I did & just like that they said I was chosen for the next step. Don't ask me how or why they chose me, but they did. So they ask me to come on Wednesday for a meeting about the next step. So I show up for this meeting & it wasn't surprising that they just wanted money out of everyone who attended. They said if we pay $689 that they can have us attend a convention in Dallas,TX that will have about 20 big name companies to look at us. But we still had to pay for our plane ticket, hotel, food all out of our own pocket. I'm a poor college kid & there is no way that I can pay for it, yet it's not even guaranteed that they'll like us. Sure we get "exposure" but it's not guaranteed. I remember on the Tyra Show, Tyra has always said that you should NEVER pay to model, they should pay you! She said that if they really like you and truly see potential, they will PAY for you to go get seen. I admit I'm disappointed once again that I can't do modeling or acting. I guess it's not in the cards for me. & I guess I will have to move to L.A. or New York for real exposure & go to casting calls. How many of you have been disappointed by those model & talent searches?