Tips for Writing Your Scholarship Essay

Personal statements are the most common type of scholarship essay.
These tips are written with that format in mind. Here are three ideas to help you keep the task in perspective:

• Space constraints are often frustrating... but your competitors face them too.
  
• Scholarship essays can pave the road for those of you interested in continuing your undergraduate work and beyond.
  
• Many students find that writing a good personal statement helps them clarify who they are and where they are going. This is inherently good.
  

Get Started

Two mildly contradictory and equally valid bits of advice:

1. Think about what you might say about yourself before you start writing.

• Scribble down a list of experiences and accomplishments. Do not limit yourself to resume items. What stories do you share with friends? What events from the past still linger in your thoughts today? What has changed you recently?
  
• Talk to other people. What would they include in your biography?
  
• Simply reflect. What is important to you? What gets you excited or moves you to act? What threads form patterns in your life? What do you hope to accomplish?
  

• Consider writing several different drafts. Experiment.
  
• Some students start by outlining the points they intend to make.
  
• Try banging out a draft within some set time limit (like thirty minutes). Read it later to look for gems twinkling amid the rocks.
  
• Writing is recursive. The fifteenth paragraph may suddenly suggest a better direction for the third sentence.
  

Read the Instructions

Surely a step that top students would never skip. Right?

1. Adhere to the minimum font size and maximum number of words.
2. Only pare down to the word limit late in the process.
3. Make sure you answer the right questions.
4. Make sure you fit the award. Quit writing and find a different scholarship.

Address Fundamental Questions

Regardless of what they ask you... readers typically want answers to the following questions:

1. What are your goals?
2. Why are you dedicated to them?
3. What in your life reflects that commitment?
4. What matters to you?
5. How do you see the world?
6. What makes you a good fit for this award?
7. What makes you stand out from other applicants?

Content

What belongs in a good personal statement is unique to each individual. Nevertheless... here are some ideas that might help.

1. Talk about things that you would enjoy discussing at length.
2. Choose a few key points to develop. . . three or four perhaps.
3. Include concrete examples to illustrate larger themes. Choose anecdotes that show you taking action in your world.
4. Avoid "braggy" generalizations. Share specific incidents to show your strengths instead.
5. Ask yourself what readers might find memorable and/or unique about you.
6. Have any books or classes or artistic encounters profoundly shaped or shaken your outlook?
7. Write from a positive perspective.
8. Consider how your essay fits with everything else you submit.

Package Carefully

All scholarships value good writing. It measures your ability to communicate well and think clearly.

1. Scrutinize every word as you near the final draft. Edit like they cost twenty dollars each.
2. Avoid technical jargon when possible. Your readers are highly intelligent but not necessarily specialists in your field.
3. Get to the point.
4. Elaborate similes and other forms of narrative artifice generally fail.
5. Establish clear relationships between your paragraphs. Write explicit transitions.
6. Including quotes from others is typically cliché.
7. Your essay should read quickly and easily. Creating an ornate garden of fancy phrases and showy words is not the goal here.
8. The purpose of eloquence is to magnify the power of the idea.

After Drafting

Here are some thoughts regarding the revision process:

1. The best essays will get revised and reworked. Get input from mentors and friends. Ask smart people who are willing to criticize your work.
2. Stay objective. Try not to fall madly in love with your first draft. Set your latest draft aside if time permits. Read it later with fresh eyes.
3. They say that a picture equals a thousand words. Reverse that idea as you read your essay. Do your thousand words add up to one good picture of you?

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