When students apply for a scholarship, the scholarship essay is considered an essential part of the application. Students who want to pursue their higher education abroad, need scholarships because the cost of education is so high. To secure a scholarship they have to submit an essay, that explains their financial need and other important factors regarding their academics and skills. Writing an essay is one of the greatest opportunities to showcase their unique qualities, skills, experience, goals, etc. So, here we will learn the steps of writing an effective essay, and other important factors.
What is a Scholarship Essay?
A scholarship essay is a written document that is submitted by the applicant with their scholarship application. It describes the applicant. The main purpose of a scholarship essay is to convince the scholarship provider that you are a deserving candidate. It happens because of your qualifications, aspirations, achievements, and skills. Students include all the details along with their hard copy in the essay including academic reports, extracurricular certification, leadership roles, community commitments, income statements to describe a financial condition, etc. Sometimes there are specific questions that students need to answer with their essays. So, applicants address these questions with their writing. Your essay can either help you win or lose the opportunity to get the scholarship.
How to Write a Scholarship Essay About Yourself?
There are some steps that students have to follow while writing their scholarship essay. You only have to make sure that you include all the details about yourself and provide insight into your vision and experience. The provider evaluates your interest and passion for the scholarship and education with your essay. So, let’s look into the points.
Points for Writing a Scholarship Essay
The basic points that students have to consider while writing scholarship essays are as follows.
- Make a List of Questions: You have to understand the scholarship prompt, what is required, and what requires more attention. After analyzing the scholarship, create a list of questions that you need to address. Make a key point about how to cover all the questions and in which sequence it should be mentioned in the essay. It includes questions about your family, finances and school background, accomplishments, achievements, goals, etc.
- Create an Outline: Before writing the essay, create a proper outline, what is to be covered, how to attract readers’ attention towards your achievements, etc. Creating an outline helps you logically organize your thoughts. Analyze your experiences, achievements, goals, and values that align with the scholarship and then include them in your outline.
- Begin with Introduction: After creating an outline you can start writing your essay with the introduction. Your introduction must be around 200 to 300 words. To grab the reader’s attention, you can use any quote, fact, or statement in your introduction that describes you well. Clearly state your purpose including your long-term goals and how your purpose aligns with the goals of the scholarship.
- Personal Details: This section includes all the personal details about yourself including your family, culture, upbringing, and the challenges that you have faced and learn a lot of values, beliefs, and aspirations. Your life experiences are essential as they describe your character and don’t lose your authenticity while writing. Provide details with honesty and integrity.
- Academic Details: Mention your academic qualifications in chronological order. It grabs the reader’s attention on your current achievement easily. This section also includes your involvement in extracurricular activities. Discuss how your leadership helps you in shipping your character and how you can use that learning for personal and societal growth.
- Community Involvement: Mention all the events in which you participated to support the community. Discuss your passion that motivates you to volunteer your services for social justice or help. It shows your motivation towards community growth.
- Other Achievements: Anything that isn’t covered under the above-mentioned sections, is mentioned here including your certification, hobbies, and strengths that make you a deserving candidate for the scholarship.
- Conclusion: At the end, include a conclusion paragraph that summarizes all your key points and describes your commitment to the chosen field and institution. Must discuss your passion for the scholarship.
- Editing: After drafting your essay, edit your essay to clarify your mistakes including grammatical errors, sentence errors, punctuation, spelling, etc. Check your word limit because it makes your essay flawless. Over-explanation and overwriting may distract the reader’s attention.
- Proofreading: After editing perform a proofreading and it can be done by your seniors, teachers, mentors, etc. Sometimes, the mistake that doesn’t catch your eye may be caught by some other person. So, it is important to catch the remaining errors.
- Adhere to Deadlines: Submit your application with all the supporting documents on time. The timely submission chances of your selection for the scholarship.
Therefore, these are the basic steps that you have to follow to make your essay effective. The major thing is that you have to double-check all your submission requirements, it shows your dedication and carefulness towards the things that increase your chance of getting selected.
Other Important Points
- Choose the professional style format for your essay.
- Your essay page should include a one-inch page margin.
- The preferred size of the font is around 12 or 13 and the colour of the font must be classic black.
- The font style that is followed for all professional letters and essays is Times New Roman.
- Keep it simple and professional, don’t experiment with anything including font size, style, or colour.
- Avoid copying and pasting, write the essay in your voice, language, and tone.
- Highlight your real-life experiences and problem-solving skills.
- To give a good start, do not use any inspirational quotes because it decreases your authenticity.
So, these are the points that help your application to stand out from the crowd. Just don’t forget to follow these basic elements while writing your scholarship essay.
Conclusion
To write a scholarship essay that describes yourself, you have to follow simple steps including evaluating the prompt of the scholarship, knowing about your target audience, introduction, family background, academic background, skills, extracurricular involvement, editing, feedback, proofreading to identify grammatical and other errors, etc. You must have to focus on the formatting of the essay. Don’t forget to include all the required documents as per the scholarship. Describe your passion, goals, and commitment and how you are a deserving candidate for the scholarship.