how do you start a scholarship essay

how do you start a scholarship essay

How to Write an Effective Scholarship Essay

1. Introduction

Let’s say for a moment that you are an A plus student and great athlete. Your essay for the scholarship would be much more effective if you present concrete examples. You want to try to address the specific qualification that the scholarship judges are looking for. A good example would be the athlete trying to get an academic scholarship. Let’s say you have always excelled in a certain subject or subjects. You could provide examples from your sports, classes, or even from your life outside of school. An example could be the time you had to manage a tough schedule to maintain good grades in and out of class during a sports season. The success attained here is due to the fact that you are proving what you have done, as opposed to restating that you are capable of doing something.

Applying for scholarships, particularly academic ones, often requires you to write an essay emphasizing the reasons you deserve the scholarship. Your essay must be both persuasive and articulate in communicating your qualifications to the judges. This is especially important in the academic scholarship category. At this point, it is very tempting for the student to simply throw in the towel and give the judges a sob story. Although a moving or tragic story can be an effective attention grabber, these only work if implemented correctly. So please do not fall into the trap of writing a poor essay in an attempt to divert attention to a more positive tale.

2. Understanding the Prompt

Read the prompt for the essay several times to ensure you have a clear understanding of what is being asked. Sometimes the prompt will ask you to write on a certain topic and sometimes it won’t give you a specific topic, just a set of guidelines (see example essays at the end of this handout). If the prompt doesn’t make you analytical, it may be easier to just write on the topic showing rather than telling. It’s often easier to write an example than to describe it. For example, one prompt may ask you to: “Argue whether leaders are born or made using specific examples from politics, business or a specific profession to back up your argument.” This is an analytical essay where you have to analyze the topic given and make an argument for or against it, but you have to do so by providing examples. In this case, beginning with a short story that directly relates to the prompt is a great way to start an essay. Since this prompt is largely about analysis, the short story will help the reader understand the analysis you will provide in the rest of the essay.

3. Crafting a Compelling Personal Statement

The questions that really hit home to me though were about my personal and academic accomplishments. Three years ago, I was a senior in high school in the Seattle area, and I just so happened to stumble upon a passage in the newspaper about a scholarship essay contest for engineering students in the state of Washington. At about the same time, my calculus teacher at school asked me if I was interested in joining a team that was competing in a math contest with students from other schools. Seeing that both of these opportunities would further my knowledge and academic experience in the field of mathematics, I agreed to both. A month later, I received news that I had won third place and a $50 prize in the scholarship essay contest. This was a huge boost to my confidence and it made me confident that I had made the right choice in choosing to make the math contest team. Two years later, my team won first place at the state level for a contest in advanced mathematics and was invited to join an engineering program for high school students. In my personal life, I consider a significant accomplishment my completion of the Eagle Scout award and my 11 years in the Boy Scouts of America.

Describe a book that made a lasting impression on you and your life and why. Ever since I was a child, I have been an avid reader, but my tastes in books have changed greatly as I have gotten older. Nowadays, I read a lot of the classics, books that you would probably have to read in a college English class. I recently read F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, and I was wondering why this book is considered a classic. I obtained an explanation through a piece written about the book and Fitzgerald himself through interviews. This began to paint a picture in my mind about Fitzgerald’s life and the lives of the characters in the book, and it surprised me at how similar to our modern lives the lives of Fitzgerald and those characters were. This sparked an interest that caused me to do a research paper on the life of F. Scott Fitzgerald, and one thing led to another and I was quickly typing a report describing the similarities and differences between American life in the 1920s compared to modern times.

The aim of these three topics is to show your character to the judges. Your approach to these topics will help to make or break your essay. It is very important to look at the essay as an opportunity instead of a chore. It is a chance to prove to the selection committee that you are a well-rounded individual, that you are more than your GPA, that you are a strong writer, and it gives you a chance to talk about your experiences and qualifications in greater detail than what appears on your resume or transcripts.

4. Highlighting Achievements and Goals

Feel free to include information on your achievements, awards, leadership, projects, activities, goals, summer jobs, involvement in the community, talents and skills, and any experience in the field you hope to have a career in. Be clear in describing your involvement and personal experiences. Why were you inspired to act? What did you learn? How do you feel it affected your outlook on the future? You can address anything you have done to work your way towards a college degree, especially in the area of your college goals. It is good to get used to spinning content for two audiences: those who will be reviewing your application and considering you for future involvement and leadership, and a more general academic audience. This makes the essay feel a little more “yours” and a little less generic to everyone who reads it. Remember, the more you practice, the easier it will become.

5. Conclusion and Call to Action

The conclusion is an often-overlooked, but still vital part of an essay. It ties everything together and gives the reader a feeling of closure. In the case of an argument, the goal is to get a decision, and a call to action is a great way to do this. It’s clear that arguments and informative essays need a conclusion and call to action, but do narrative essays need a conclusion as well? The answer is yes. Imagine assigning a story to write without a conclusion. Having no conclusion for a narrative essay would be like if at the end of a movie the screen just went black, or if you walked out of a story and closed the book without finishing it. Even if the reader doesn’t consciously know it, the feeling of a story isn’t complete without a conclusion. So how do we write a great conclusion? One way is to tie up the ‘Body’ section and the ‘Call to Action’. My final and most memorable last impression was when my friend had finished taking the SAT’s. His trudge towards the door, his hangdog look of despair, and his most pitiful attempt at a triumphant smile told the whole story. The SAT’s are a grueling experience, and was conveyed in all its glory and misery through those 3 seconds. The picture of this scene could go in the ‘Body’ section, as it is just a description of a significant event. The conclusion or call to action would be to explain how with my help, you too can achieve a taste of victory when you finally overcome those grueling SAT’s and the feeling of personal accomplishment. This can serve as a classic ‘it will get worse before it gets better’ contrast, with the conclusion bringing a happy ending to an initially depressing anecdote. This leaves the reader with a positive feeling, making them more likely to approve of the information presented. An analogy is also a great tool for a conclusion. It takes the information provided and makes it seem relevant to everyone. At the young age of 86 my once chain-smoking grandmother swims a mile each day in her home pool. A recently uncovered study suggests that smoking may cause immune system damage severe enough for the individual to wind up with cancer when they are an 86 year old woman. This information could lead to a call to action which could be something as simple as ‘For a better future, start changing your lifestyle now.’ At this point an analogy of my grandmother’s situation is given, and using her as an example it tries to convince the reader that it is never too early to promote a healthy lifestyle in order to avoid a health problem late in life. This option is perfect for an analogy, taking it literally and creating a bright future for my grandmother who does not smoke.