How to Write Your College Scholarship Essay
The essay could be considered the singularly most important aspect of your application because it gives the scholarship selection committee a chance to get some insight into you, your personality, your influences and your goals. The scholarship essay should tell the committee something about you, even if the question is very technical and specific. The committee should remember your essay because it is different from the others and leaves the reader remembering it and thinking about it.
Know the Question – While you certainly want to inflect some of your own personality into the essay, make sure you have carefully read the question first and understand what is being asked. An essay can be worded perfectly and fantastic to read, but if it doesn’t answer the question, the selection committee is going to remember it as being the essay that went off topic. Some scholarship applications ask very general questions such as your future goals or influences in your personality or life. Even then, be sure you understand just what the question is asking of you.
Do Some Background Research – Yes, you want to interject some of your personality into your essay. You also want to make sure the selection committee knows you understand the purpose of the organization sponsoring the scholarship. Do some research into the organization. Find out who founded it, what its original purpose was, its stated mission and objectives. Armed with this information, you are in an even better position to analyze the question and relate it back to the organization’s ideals. If doing a little research helps you understand the type of answer the committee is looking for, then you’re already a step ahead of the other applicants.
Create an Outline – From a young age, we are taught, as students, to outline our ideas on scratch paper before beginning to write. Your essay should be no different. Jot down important points you want to touch on and relate the different sections of your essay to the areas of your personality and life you want to mention. Try and organize your outline into the different parts you want to include and then put the parts into order. Always remember, you need an introduction paragraph, the main body of your essay, and your final conclusion paragraph.
Begin Writing – You can now begin actually writing your paper. Make sure to leave yourself plenty of time to write the paper, review it and make necessary changes. Try to include everything you have in your essay, but always remember to stay within the required word limit or page limit. Not following directions is another quality the scholarship committee doesn’t want in its scholarship recipient. Once you’ve written your essay, read it over and look for immediate mistakes such as misspellings or grammatical errors.
Share It – Before sending your essay in with your application, you should share it with an English professor, writing specialist, parent or all three! It’s good to have as much feedback as possible and to receive all types of advice. Remember, you don’t have to take all the advice you receive, but critiquing is helpful because other parties may pick up mistakes you overlooked or have suggestions you had not previously thought of. Once you’ve reviewed the feedback and modifications others have suggested, take your time to revise the essay. Keep reworking it until you feel you have an essay that answers the question clearly and concisely, gives the committee some insight about you and is a paper you could fully expect to receive an excellent grade in your English class. Congrats! You’re done! Send it in with the application and be ready for the next step!