In my previous post I described the criteria and presentation that you must concern yourself with when trying to earn scholarships. Many scholarships require more than your paper application that requires you to fill in some blank spaces. Essays will need to be written and in some cases an interview will be conducted.
For your scholarship essays (and even college essays) you have to hit a homerun. Many applicants meet the requirements and have many stellar accomplishments, but essays present the opportunity to convey your unique personality and stand out from the crowd. A major pitfall for applicants is to use their essays to further elaborate on their academic and extracurricular accomplishments that were already covered in other parts of the application. Some students do this because they are convinced that no one is as much of as high school all star as they are and seeing this in an essay form will blow the selection committee away. Bad idea. Some students do this because they can't be creative and don't know how handle essay prompts like "Describe yourself." So they resort to listing more accomplishments. Even worse idea. Take advantage of the essays to demonstrate a genuine and interesting personality. Detail a unique experience or perspective--avoid cliches.
For the Semi-Finalist application for the Coca-Cola Scholar program I had to discuss the concept of collaboration and how it affected our society. I decided to use my experience as a student and entrepreneur to detail a summer program I went to--including the friends I made and successes my business team achieved. I didn't discuss games I played with friends or how we won the business plan competition. Bringing up how close friendships and a cooperative spirit contributed to a team synergy that allowed us to collaborate and produce an innovative product communicated something totally different. It let the committee see that I was a people person, aware of the power of relationships. I conveyed what I learned with a unique twist about collaboration--not a word about awards or recognition. I went on to include a brief section about how I planned on leveraging collaboration through the Coca Cola Scholars Foundation and during college. Committees care about what you have done, but they also want to know what you will do since you will be a representative of their organization.
Consider your audience. In writing about collaboration, I knew that the judges of my essay would be civic and business leaders volunteering with Coca Cola. Of course an essay about leveraging collaboration in a business environment at an educational enrichment program would be more interesting for the civic and business leaders to read and make me seem like a more suitable applicant.
With your essays, avoid trying to use impressive vocabulary or overly creative essay structures. The most important idea is that your personality shines through. Scholarships will be awarded to individuals not paper applications. Make your independent voice known and the selection committee will hear you.
Info on interviews coming soon...
