What is a scholarship essay?
A scholarship essay is one of the writing pieces of the admission application. It is also a piece of writing about you. By reading your essay, the scholarship committee can inspire you and your work. Thus, it is a chance to sell yourself to prospective scholarship program by letting them know about you and your personality and background.
How to write a winning essay?
- Choosing the right format: You still need a format even though outlines are given for the essay. You have to make sure you put most of/all outlines given for the essay. For example,
First paragraph – would be the introduction of your essay. Generally, it should be more about a brief of why you want to apply this scholarship or your passion for the scholarship and your country. However, the content of the introduction varies according to the given outlines.
Second paragraph – would be the specific details about you. It includes your academic interests, your experiences and your impacts, and your career prospects and future plans, etc.
Third paragraph – would be the conclusion of your essay. Generally, it should be a place where you persuade the reader why you deserve the scholarship. - Check word limitation: Given the limitation of the words for the essay, you can adjust the length of your essay while structuring paragraphs in an organized way. If it is a 300-word essay, you might want to write 3 paragraphs. If it is a 500-word essay, you might want to write 5 or more paragraphs.
- Use scholarship description as a guide: Identify keywords, criteria, aims and values to help you know what specific information about you have to be included. Understanding the description can help you present yourself that you’re a matching candidate whom the scholarship is looking for. Check any required documents like achievements or your academic records, certificates and recommendations, etc.
- Read essay samples: The best way to learn to write a scholarship essay is reading scholarship essay samples as much as you can. Analyze and take notes on how the writer writes an essay, uses the sentences, and organization and structure of the essay.
- Avoid plagiarism: You must be cautious not to copy ‘word-for-word’. But instead, you can paraphrase or use the sentence structure of the writer in a different scenario of yours. For example, if the essay you’re reading has this strong and persuasive sentence which is used in describing his experience, you might want to use that sentence structure in describing your academic background. Remember, it is a must to avoid plagiarism.
- Create a structure: You must think of how you will tell your story in an essay prior to writing one. It is important to write your essay in an organized manner. For example, start with a general statement followed by strong reasons and evidence. Speaking of evidence, it should be your personal experience providing the year of your work or how many years you worked. It is more persuasive if you can provide your accomplishments in your academic studies or previous works.
- Focus on yourself: Common mistakes in essays are found to be writing about others except yourself. For example: ‘I work in ABC company which is doing for the improvement in students’ skills. It has trained a number of students in improving their knowledge and skills for job opportunities. Its mission is to …. It has contributed to …’ etc. By this example, you can see this essay emphasizes on writing about his/her company, not about him/himself unless the essay asks for the organization’s work. Thus, it should be self-focus like ‘I work in ABC company where I work as an Assistant Manager. I have conducted 10 trainings in communities where there are challenges to grab job opportunities. As a result, students under my supervision have developed in …’ etc. Remember, essays mostly ask about you, not about your organization.
- Show, don’t tell: Cardinal rule of writing is not saying ‘what you do’, but rather ‘how you do’. For example, ‘She got a stomachache.’ Vs. ‘Her stomachache makes her sweat and looks pales.’ By seeing these two sentences, it is obvious the second one is descriptive by telling how much she is suffered by stomachache. The second sentence is a good example of describing ‘how you do’.
How to highlight your background?
- Academic interests: provide your education, major field and specialized interests.
- Professional interests: state how you would apply your academic interests in professional field in the future.
- Experiences: explain your work by saying ‘how you did or how you’re doing your work’ rather than ‘what you did’. Don’t forget to write your positive impacts or your success story.
Be honest, but positive!
It is not advised to write false information about you. Claiming you have something that you actually don’t have or vice versa. One example is when you want to learn more about this particular subject because you have no knowledge related with the subject, but the scholarship wants those with prior or professional knowledge and thus, you claim that you have required knowledge in this subject is the wrong information of yours. Another example is when the scholarship is looking for those with little to zero experiences in leadership because it will train the students to become leaders, but you have 2 years in leading projects, so you state to have leadership experience of nearly 2 months which is a wrong information of yours. However, you can write in a positive way that you have passion or great interest in the subject that you’d like to learn more, or you’d like to have more leadership experience through this scholarship. You might get rejected when you’re overqualified or not qualified but stating true information matters.
5 Tips for standout scholarship essays
- Essay writing must be simple, cohesive and coincide, and specific and in-detail.
- Use synonyms to avoid word repetitions.
- Use positive writing style which means essay should be neither too humble nor boasting.
- Avoid writing other than about yourself.
- Do not write in the last moment.
Do you have tips of how you write scholarship essays? You can share in the comments to let the other readers know your tips. I can’t wait to know all your tips and thoughts.