Refer to this word essay example and learn how to write an essay that is unique to your experiences. With a common topic that makes common connections and uses common language i. Founded two years ago, the Catalyzing Creativity Club C3, for shortprovides students in our community the opportunity to pursue their passion and aspirations outside the classroom. Like this, writing a scholarship essay, for example:. Scholarship Essay Tips Your scholarship essay is going to be your primary writing a scholarship essay sometimes sole form of communication with the organization granting the scholarship. That means writing in your own voice and tone. What did you do about it?
Steps for Writing a Scholarship Essay
How do I know these are the most common scholarship prompts? What are colleges and organizations looking for in a scholarship essay? How do I write a creative scholarship essay that stands out? Can I re-use scholarship essays as college essays i. personal statement or supplemental essays —and, writing a scholarship essay so, how? Here are the top 10 most common scholarship essay prompts:. What impact has sports had on your life? Or some other athletics-related question. How have you contributed to your community, writing a scholarship essay, or what community service have you provided? Tell us about a time you failed and what you learned from it. Tell us about a time when you had a belief or idea challenged. I love both College Greenlight and Going Merry.
They both have great search engines. In fact, try them both! Organizations i. Then come back. Why should you apply for a bunch of scholarships? This is basically a big list of all your scholarship essays organized by prompt, due date, word limit, etc. Why do this? Click here for a downloadable scholarship tracker you can download and customize. Wait: I can do that? Yes, you totally can. I call this…. As a quick example, notice how you could write one essay that answers all these questions:. How are you unique? Discuss your background, writing a scholarship essay, identity, interest, or talent [Similar to Common App prompt 1]. The essay tells us about: who the author is Prompt 1how she is unique Prompt 2how she failed and learned from the experience Prompt 3and even her academic and career goals Prompt 4.
Write an essay that works for multiple prompts. The short version: put all of your prompts in your essay tracker and color code them based on which prompts seem similar, writing a scholarship essay. Next, copy and paste prompts of the same color at the top of a blank page and brainstorm topics that might work for each group of prompts. As you create your outline and begin your draft, keep the different prompts in mind. Click here for more details on this technique, including a step-by-step guide to writing a Super Essay with examples.
This scholarship prompt is wide open. And by that I mean you can pretty much do anything you want with it. Prefer a YouTube video? At six years old, I stood locked away in the restroom. Regardless, I knew what was happening: my dad was being put under arrest for domestic abuse. Living without a father meant money was tight, mom worked two jobs, and my brother and I took care of each other when she worked. For a brief period of time the quality of writing a scholarship essay lives slowly started to improve as our soon-to-be step-dad became an integral part of our family. He paid attention to the needs of my mom, my brother, and me. I cooked, Jose cleaned, I dressed Fernando, Jose put him to bed. We did what we had to do. As undocumented immigrants and with little to no writing a scholarship essay around us, we had to rely on each other, writing a scholarship essay.
Fearing that any disclosure of our status would risk deportation, we kept to ourselves when dealing with any financial and medical issues. I avoided going on certain school trips, and at times I was discouraged to even meet new people. I felt isolated and at times disillusioned; my grades started to slip. Over time, however, writing a scholarship essay, I grew determined to improve the quality of life for my family and myself. Without a father figure to teach me the things a father could, I became my own teacher. I learned how to fix a bike, how to swim, and even how to talk to girls. I became resourceful, fixing shoes with strips of duct tape, and I even found a job to help pay bills. I became as independent as Writing a scholarship essay could to lessen the time and money mom had to spend raising me.
I also worked to apply myself constructively in other ways. These changes inspired me to help others. I became president of the California Scholarship Federation, providing students with information to prepare them for college, while creating opportunities for my peers to play a bigger part in our community. I began tutoring kids, teens, and adults on a variety of subjects ranging from basic English to home improvement and even Calculus. And I have yet to see the person that Fernando will become. Not because I have to. Because I choose to. Create Your Scholarship Essay Tracker and check to see what other topics this prompt might overlap with. Create an outline that works for all the potential overlapping prompts. Write a draft using the resources linked above, in particular the free guide.
Revise your essay using this exercise. Use the Great College Essay Test to see how your essay might be improved, writing a scholarship essay, then revise as needed until your essay is solid, writing a scholarship essay. Share it with people you trust and revise again, as needed. Submit your essay and any other required documents before the deadline. Click here for more great examples of essays that tell us a lot about their authors and were written using the resources linked above. I believe the difference between a boring essay and a stand-out essay is this:.
un common topic. un common connections. un common achievements. un common language. Topic : Certain sports like basketball are more common than others like indoor skydiving. More details in a sec. Achievements : Some accolades like winning a local or state tournament are more common than others like being the only female on your wrestling team, for example, or playing for a national team. With a common topic that makes common connections and uses common language i. First, pick a cliché topic that writing a scholarship essay might use for an essay.
Take football, for instance. Step 1: Brainstorm the cliché version of your essay. First, tell me what the typical football or mission trip essay will focus on. Take a look at this list of Values and think of a few cliché values that you think the typical essay would focus on. A cliché connection for [football] might be [teamwork, responsibility, hard work, etc. A cliché connection for a [mission trip] might be [helping others, hard work, passion, etc, writing a scholarship essay. Step 2: Come up with uncommon values. Next, brainstorm values that might not normally be associated with football or a mission trip. An uncommon connection to [football] might be [resourcefulness, healthy boundaries, critical thinking, etc, writing a scholarship essay.
An uncommon connection to [a mission trip] might be [serenity, accountability, practicality, etc. If you can find one uncommon connection you can find writing a scholarship essay, if you can find two you can find three, and if you can find three then you have enough content for a whole essay. Step 3: Tie the value to a specific example from your life. As a cornerback, I meticulously and systematically scan the offense, looking for nuances in formation before the quarterback snaps the ball, all in a matter of seconds.
See how that makes for a more interesting football writing a scholarship essay This may take you a little while, but be patient and stick with it. Step 4: Decide on an order for your details and write a draft. Then try a draft. For a more comprehensive guide that explains how to write an extracurricular activity essay that can work for other college essay and scholarship prompts, click here. Step 1: Imagine a mini-movie of the moments that led you to your interest and create a simple, bullet point outline:. Elementary school: Getting my first dinosaur toy and reading dinosaur books. Middle school: Visiting museums, seeing water under a microscope. High school: Doing online research, getting internship where we analyzed brainwaves and dissected a stingray.
It also makes it easier to write transitions, writing a scholarship essay.
hoop dreams essay
Likewise, avoid flowery language in favor of more succinct sentences. The following sentiment feels overly general and wordy:. This rewrite expresses the same idea in a much more succinct way:. We all know that exclamation marks indicate excitement! Truthfully, we love exclamation points! And while winning financial aid in the form of scholarships IS very exciting, too many exclamation marks can be overkill. In this case, you can use exclamation marks more freely. Many people falsely believe that an exclamation mark will make a sentence more powerful. But the truth is, empowering statements pack a punch without one. These characteristics are huge on a scholarship essay. Essay readers are not simply looking for the hardest story when selecting a winner, but rather a complete narrative that includes how the student has worked to overcome the challenge.
In addition, we recommend focusing on a central event or experience — which tends to read as more powerful, especially when faced with a word or character limit. That means writing in your own voice and tone. So long as you keep it professional, readers want you to sound like YOU. Keep it clean and clear, but also keep it real! Is this the definition of a humble brag? Your scholarship essay is a great place to share your accomplishments. Your character, dedication, and integrity should come through naturally in your writing. Most scholarship essays are fairly short, so avoid bloating your essay with gratitude and praise for the opportunity.
Use your character and words allotments to answer the prompt thoroughly instead! If you have space, a brief thank you is thoughtful and appropriate. Polite but to the point. So revise, revise, revise! Walk away from your work to clear your mind and then come back to it. Choose a trusted teacher, peer, or friend, and be open to their suggestions for improvement. A well-planned essay has a much higher chance of winning than one you crank out last minute. We recommend giving yourself at least 2 weeks before the deadline of an essay to brainstorm, draft, and revise your essay. Ideally, you should leave a couple of days between each of these stages of the essay writing process. This break will help you avoid essay writing burnout. If the essay prompts and directions are nearly identical between one scholarship application and another, you can reuse the essay.
And this will save you a ton of time! Your answer to both prompts is probably going to be the same, right? Write the essay for one application. Then, reuse and adapt that same essay to fit the word count, directions, etc. of the second application. Coca Cola Foundation in your essay, remember to change the name when reusing the essay for another scholarship application! We sure do. Whether you find them scrolling Instagram or keep them tacked up above your desk, a great quote can be super empowering. I want to attend college so I can become a nurse and change the world. This essay is about you , so famous quotes are just a distraction.
The name of the game for winning scholarships is standing out from the mix. Platitudes are common, overly simplified statements that people use all the time. DO illustrate specifically how things will change if you win the scholarship money. Many scholarship essay prompts ask you to discuss how winning a scholarship would impact you. And this is often where cliches creep in. Cliches are phrases, stories, or themes that are overused to the point that they lose their power and meaning. Many cliches involve a person who, with a little help, turns it all around and prevails.
In real life, we LOVE a Cinderella story as much as anyone. In fact, try them both! Organizations i. Then come back. Why should you apply for a bunch of scholarships? This is basically a big list of all your scholarship essays organized by prompt, due date, word limit, etc. Why do this? Click here for a downloadable scholarship tracker you can download and customize. Wait: I can do that? Yes, you totally can. I call this…. As a quick example, notice how you could write one essay that answers all these questions:. How are you unique? Discuss your background, identity, interest, or talent [Similar to Common App prompt 1]. The essay tells us about: who the author is Prompt 1 , how she is unique Prompt 2 , how she failed and learned from the experience Prompt 3 , and even her academic and career goals Prompt 4.
Write an essay that works for multiple prompts. The short version: put all of your prompts in your essay tracker and color code them based on which prompts seem similar. Next, copy and paste prompts of the same color at the top of a blank page and brainstorm topics that might work for each group of prompts. As you create your outline and begin your draft, keep the different prompts in mind. Click here for more details on this technique, including a step-by-step guide to writing a Super Essay with examples. This scholarship prompt is wide open. And by that I mean you can pretty much do anything you want with it. Prefer a YouTube video? At six years old, I stood locked away in the restroom.
Regardless, I knew what was happening: my dad was being put under arrest for domestic abuse. Living without a father meant money was tight, mom worked two jobs, and my brother and I took care of each other when she worked. For a brief period of time the quality of our lives slowly started to improve as our soon-to-be step-dad became an integral part of our family. He paid attention to the needs of my mom, my brother, and me. I cooked, Jose cleaned, I dressed Fernando, Jose put him to bed. We did what we had to do. As undocumented immigrants and with little to no family around us, we had to rely on each other. Fearing that any disclosure of our status would risk deportation, we kept to ourselves when dealing with any financial and medical issues.
I avoided going on certain school trips, and at times I was discouraged to even meet new people. I felt isolated and at times disillusioned; my grades started to slip. Over time, however, I grew determined to improve the quality of life for my family and myself. Without a father figure to teach me the things a father could, I became my own teacher. I learned how to fix a bike, how to swim, and even how to talk to girls. I became resourceful, fixing shoes with strips of duct tape, and I even found a job to help pay bills. I became as independent as I could to lessen the time and money mom had to spend raising me. I also worked to apply myself constructively in other ways. These changes inspired me to help others. I became president of the California Scholarship Federation, providing students with information to prepare them for college, while creating opportunities for my peers to play a bigger part in our community.
I began tutoring kids, teens, and adults on a variety of subjects ranging from basic English to home improvement and even Calculus. And I have yet to see the person that Fernando will become. Not because I have to. Because I choose to. Create Your Scholarship Essay Tracker and check to see what other topics this prompt might overlap with. Create an outline that works for all the potential overlapping prompts. Write a draft using the resources linked above, in particular the free guide. Revise your essay using this exercise. Use the Great College Essay Test to see how your essay might be improved, then revise as needed until your essay is solid. Share it with people you trust and revise again, as needed. Submit your essay and any other required documents before the deadline.
Click here for more great examples of essays that tell us a lot about their authors and were written using the resources linked above. I believe the difference between a boring essay and a stand-out essay is this:. un common topic. un common connections. un common achievements. un common language. Topic : Certain sports like basketball are more common than others like indoor skydiving. More details in a sec. Achievements : Some accolades like winning a local or state tournament are more common than others like being the only female on your wrestling team, for example, or playing for a national team. With a common topic that makes common connections and uses common language i. First, pick a cliché topic that you might use for an essay.
Take football, for instance. Step 1: Brainstorm the cliché version of your essay. First, tell me what the typical football or mission trip essay will focus on. Take a look at this list of Values and think of a few cliché values that you think the typical essay would focus on. A cliché connection for [football] might be [teamwork, responsibility, hard work, etc. A cliché connection for a [mission trip] might be [helping others, hard work, passion, etc. Step 2: Come up with uncommon values. Next, brainstorm values that might not normally be associated with football or a mission trip.
An uncommon connection to [football] might be [resourcefulness, healthy boundaries, critical thinking, etc. An uncommon connection to [a mission trip] might be [serenity, accountability, practicality, etc. If you can find one uncommon connection you can find two, if you can find two you can find three, and if you can find three then you have enough content for a whole essay. Step 3: Tie the value to a specific example from your life. As a cornerback, I meticulously and systematically scan the offense, looking for nuances in formation before the quarterback snaps the ball, all in a matter of seconds. See how that makes for a more interesting football essay? This may take you a little while, but be patient and stick with it.
Step 4: Decide on an order for your details and write a draft. Then try a draft. For a more comprehensive guide that explains how to write an extracurricular activity essay that can work for other college essay and scholarship prompts, click here. Step 1: Imagine a mini-movie of the moments that led you to your interest and create a simple, bullet point outline:. Elementary school: Getting my first dinosaur toy and reading dinosaur books. Middle school: Visiting museums, seeing water under a microscope. High school: Doing online research, getting internship where we analyzed brainwaves and dissected a stingray. It also makes it easier to write transitions. Step 3: Decide if you want to include a specific thesis that explicitly states your central argument—in this case what you want to study and why.
This thesis can be at the beginning, middle, or end of your essay. Why Electrical Engineering? My decision to major in Electrical Engineering was inspired by my desire to improve security through technology. Thanks to the influence of my cousin, who now studies Autonomous Systems, I developed an interest in electrical engineering. In the future: work with large companies or on national security. Why Gender and Sexuality Studies? My interest in Gender and Sexuality Studies was sparked in my eighth grade Civics class when we studied topics pertaining to sexual equality. I went into the class knowing I believed women had a right to make choices for their own bodies and that view remained the same, but I discovered the complexity of abortion debates.
I challenged myself by thinking about the disparity between actual and potential personhood and the moral rights of unconscious lives. If pregnancy had the same consequences for men as it does women, how might the debate be different? Would this debate even exist? On my first shift, I watched an incarcerated woman receive a postpartum exam after giving birth in her cell toilet with just Advil, and the issues discussed in Civics suddenly became urgent and real. My school projects have often focused on reproductive rights. The interdisciplinary nature of this major will allow me to investigate many other areas of study and create a more nuanced understanding of how this particular field interacts with our world and society.
Outline - Why Gender and Sexuality Studies:. Imagine all the stars in the universe. The brain has a thousand times the number of synapses, making neurological errors a near certainty. I learned this fact firsthand as a 14 year-old, when I suffered from sleepless nights because of an uncomfortable, indescribable feeling in my leg. It took months of appointments and tests to be told it was a condition called cortical dysplasia. Even after the diagnosis, there is no cure. I am lucky. My condition does not severely affect my quality of life. However, I know this is not the case for everyone.
After this experience, I took AP Biology and attended a neuroscience program, which reinforced the subject as my future calling. One of the most impactful lectures discussed the plight of healthcare in developing nations. Newborns with extreme neurological deficits are common, but finding treatments is not. Without prenatal care, this is becoming a growing epidemic, leaving millions of children helpless. With a degree in neuroscience, I will gain a strong understanding of neural tube development and neuronal migration in infants. I will then become a neurologist, specializing in pediatric care. I hope to work for humanitarian organizations, such as Doctors Without Borders, in Africa, where HIV and polio are rampant, as are numerous other diseases.
Imagine the stars once more. From across the world, I will look at the same stars in the future, as I help children secure the ability to not only look at the stars, but do much more. Hook: Connect number of stars to number of connections in brain and maybe mention cortical dysplasia. If possible, connect them. Describing areas of interest is still a good idea. It shows your intellectual curiosity and demonstrates your ability to make connections across a range of academic disciplines. It works like this:. This structure was inspired by an article by Andy Raskin in which he analyzes a pitch Elon Musk gave on the Powerwall. But at the end, his audience cheers.
For a battery. Step 1: Identify the problem. Describe the challenge you were or are currently facing. The problem could be something global, like an environmental issue, or something more local, like a lack of creative opportunities in your high school. Step 2: Raise the stakes. Help us understand: Why was or is overcoming this challenge important? What might happen if this problem went or goes unchecked? Step 3: Describe what you did. Tell us the specific things you or you and your team did to solve the problem. Step 4: Clarify your role. Describe your particular involvement. Step 5: Share the impact you had, lessons you learned, or values you gained. Provide specific evidence that gives us a sense that your work mattered. The Catalyzing Creativity Club.
I take pride in knowing that my contribution has shown my peers that they have powerful voices that deserve to be heard. Obtaining higher education will allow me to continue uplifting voices and fighting for educational equity in a professional setting. For the OppU Achievers Scholarship, we ask applicants to tell us about what makes them an achiever. She then provides concrete examples of her accomplishments, and she includes links that document them:. The essay is grammatically flawless. It contains no typos. Ian Tapu , a law student at the University of Hawaii, won our scholarship in November I intimately understand that for far too long, underrepresented groups, especially Pacific Islanders PI , have been conditioned to believe our only connection with the law is the criminal justice system.
It is not surprising to accept this truism when it is our bodies that are disproportionately criminalized and as a result overly represented in the prison population. At a time in which immigrants are hotly political and contested, I am an achiever because I was raised by immigrants from Samoa and Tonga. When I started law school, I noticed there were no student organizations that supported or advocated on behalf of PI students and as a response, I founded the first- ever Pacific Islander Legal Association. Within three months of our formation, I organized the first-ever Pre-Law Symposium for Pacific Islanders. The goal of the two-day symposium was to demystify the application process and empower PIs to see they have a space in the field of law.
The symposium included two keynote speakers — a Samoan First Deputy Prosecuting Attorney and the first Samoan judge in the United States — a panel of PI law students, a panel of PI legal professionals, a resume and personal statement writing workshop, a practice LSAT exam, a campus tour, and an admissions and financial aid informational session. What started as an endeavor with the hope of attracting 15 participants, ballooned into a movement with 77 attendees that hailed from a swath of island nations including New Zealand, Marshall Islands, Tonga, Fiji, Pohnpei, Samoa, Guam, and Hawaii. My advocacy for my community then found its way to the state legislature. I organized student participation, set up lobby days at the state Capitol, and testified in front of and held meetings with various state politicians which eventually led to the passing of the law.
I have one goal as a gay Pacific Islander — to utilize the law as a tool for empowerment instead of oppression. Similar to Kaycee, Ian responds to our essay prompt in a way that demonstrates that he meets all of the criteria we use to evaluate candidates. Keniece Gray , an incoming law student at Georgetown, won the OppU Achievers Scholarship in May of This tenacity has empowered me to exceed the mediocre expectations that society has set for people raised in communities like mine, places plagued by high crime and poverty rates and low levels of education and hope. As one of the few people in my community with access to academic and career opportunities in communities of wealth, I feel obligated to push for equity in such spaces. This sense of obligation motivates me to leverage my platforms of privilege to provide members of under-served communities with resources they need to excel in academia and the workforce.
My position as a minority in terms of age, race, gender, or geographic origin in the classroom and workplace has often made me the target of discriminatory behaviors. Instead of allowing the discrimination to decimate my academic success, I employed strategies that I learned from mentors and inclusion training such as focusing on my strengths and seeking professional help to cope. I relied on what I learned about pipeline development while completing seven internships and studying abroad to found Journey to the Board JTTB , an organization providing underrepresented students with critical career skills.
To date, JTTB has sponsored more than 25 student memberships in professional organizations and three passport applications to encourage study abroad. While serving as the International Second Vice President of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc. Now, I am preparing to attend law school this fall to disrupt the pervasive racial and gender biases in the legal industry and learn how to harness the law for social change. My story is a testament that the power of the mind is not a joke. I hope that my work inspires individuals from similar backgrounds as me to believe that they too can defy stereotypes and optimize opportunities. More importantly, I hope my story influences others to reach back while climbing forward. Keniece is exactly the type of candidate we were looking for, and her essay provided all the material we needed to see that.
She goes on to list all of her accomplishments: seven internships, founded a nonprofit, active in community service. These are impressive enough on their own, but what made the essay stand out is that it captured the passion that Keniece brings to her work advocating for the causes she cares about:. These three essay examples are very different from one another. However, what they have in common is that they all convinced us that the applicant was the right person to receive the OppU Achievers Scholarship. All of the applicants did the work to find the right scholarship.
No comments:
Post a Comment