scholarship essay contest

scholarship essay contest

Importance of Scholarship Essay Contests

1. Benefits of Scholarship Essay Contests

Another benefit of a writing scholarship is that it can free you from the financial burdens of college that often go uncontested. High tuition rates and expensive textbooks can make college education an expensive venture. But with a scholarship you can pay your way through school without the burden of repaying an expensive student loan. Written communication is a key element to success in your chosen career field. By channeling your efforts into a scholarship essay or video contest, you can develop your communication skills and learn more about your talents, often times investing in yourself and your future career.

An important positive distinction about these contests is that the essay is often required to be written on a topic invented by the sponsor. This will push students to perform some research on their own to expand their views when seeking to understand the global impact of a given topic. Through this extra knowledge, you will have an edge against some of the other applicants through the additional insight you gained.

When we think of scholarship opportunities, one of the first things that come to mind is an essay. Writing scholarships are an excellent way to leverage your talents to secure financial aid to further your education. Keeping these benefits in mind, when you explore a few popular scholarship essay contests, you may come across a gift that could change your life! If you are skilled at writing and know how to effectively express your thoughts, then scholarship essay contests are definitely products you will want to look into.

2. How to Choose the Right Scholarship Essay Contest

Tip #3: Be Original It is important for you to write a unique essay. Do not copy the question and definitely do not copy the sample scholarship essays. Be yourself. Suppose you are the one reviewing the scholarship essay and you come across an essay that is similar to other candidates. Are you going to consider that candidate? I bet chances are that candidate won’t get the scholarship.

Tip #2: Brainstorm Ideas Once you understand what the question is all about, it’s time for you to think about what kind of student you are. Are you a student who is active in the class and involved in many extracurricular activities, or are you just a student who only knows how to study and study without getting involved in any activities? List down some of your strengths and achievements.

Tip #1: Understand the Question The first thing you need to do before you start to write your scholarship essay is to understand the essay question. You need to know what the scholarship committee wants to hear from you. If you understand the question clearly, then you have a greater possibility of winning the scholarship.

Here are some tips to answer a scholarship essay question:

Answering the essay question, your scholarship essay helps judges to understand what kind of student you are, as it gives them a glimpse of your thought processes. By providing an insightful response, chances are you will stand out from other candidates.

3. Tips for Writing a Winning Scholarship Essay

1. Know your audience. Remember your audience and do not attempt to use your essay to explain how much you need financial aid to get to college or how badly you want to earn it. The judges already know these things; you learned about the scholarship from a professor at your college. If you are applying for a scholarship from your college, check to see if there are any alumni from your high school on the panel. Find out what you can about them and their experiences related to the scholarship and use it as a gauge for determining the best route to take in presenting your information. If you know what the panel is looking for, you can tailor your essay to meet those specific requirements. 2. Follow the essay instructions. Every scholarship differs in what it seeks to award. Depending on the essay instructions, you may also be asked for an analysis of a given statement or quotation. It is important to understand what the committee is looking for from the essay. If the essay instructions ask for a narrative of your experiences, a detailed description of your activities or a diagram of your progress, you should write in a narrative form. If the instructions ask a direct question, such as, “How have your experiences influenced your career goals?” or “Who is your inspiration and why?”, you should break the essay up into these specific questions. If you do not follow what the instructions ask, you will be greatly reducing your chances of winning the scholarship. 3. Choose your topic carefully. Many times an interesting topic may prove to be a bit challenging for a writer. When this occurs, the topic is likely too broad and it is necessary to narrow it down. Scholarship essays vary dramatically in subject. However, most of them require a recounting of personal experience. These tips will be more helpful for writing personal essays, like for the National Merit Scholarship, than for writing academic essays. The most important aspect of your scholarship essay is the subject matter. You should expect to devote about 1-2 weeks simply to brainstorming ideas.

4. Common Mistakes to Avoid in Scholarship Essays

Attempting to just outline your strengths in a linear list is not a good idea. You mustn’t just list your skills and accomplishments. Yes, you must let the scholarship provider know your skills and strengths, but if you do this by simply listing your skills, the essay would not be persuasive and would come across as weak. And to add to this, it might lead to you feeling like you have to impress the reader, leading you to add in information that isn’t true, which is never a good idea. Another common mistake is taking too long to get to the point. The introduction of your essay is the only chance you have to give the reader an insight into your personality. If you take too long to get to the meat of your essay, you will give the reader a negative impression and might even miss your chance of being able to tell them what they really need to know about you. Not tailoring your essay to each scholarship is a fatal mistake. Even if you have an amazing concept about yourself, it may not apply to the scholarship for which you are applying. The first thing you must do is read and re-read the essay statement in order to fully understand it. Then you can brainstorm some things you can tell about yourself that would relate to the theme and the essay. Avoiding scholarship essay mistakes is just the beginning of writing an excellent scholarship essay.

5. Maximizing Your Chances of Winning a Scholarship

This may seem a bit obvious but to increase your chances of winning a scholarship, you must first apply for more scholarships. This does not mean that you should apply for any scholarship for which you may not qualify just to say that you applied for a lot of scholarships. The more scholarships for which you apply that you are actually qualified, the better chances you will have of winning one. If you apply for only a few scholarships, then you may have a lower chance of earning any money for college. While it is possible to win a scholarship in your first few tries, the probability of earning a scholarship increases with each scholarship for which you apply. Remember time is valuable and the smaller scholarships may take as long to earn as the larger ones, so is it not worth your time of applying for many scholarships including some less than $1000. Consider finding scholarships that have fewer applicants, increasing chance to win the scholarship. High school and college counseling offices and businesses frequently have details about locally administered scholarships and can give helpful advice. If a scholarship has an essay to complete, save it and reuse it. Modify the essay to the awarding organization’s actions and values. Keep in mind that applying for scholarships should not take very much money. There are many scholarships where the chances of winning are significantly higher than other scholarships. Research the scholarships and carefully plan your approach. Apply for scholarships with larger amounts. Often time and effort put into the scholarship application process is equal across the board for any scholarship amount. It is better to have spent an extra hour for a $1000 scholarship instead of a $100 scholarship. With this approach in mind, double-check the legitimacy of the above mentioned no-brainer scholarship. Often times these are false and may include hidden fees. An example may be they send you a letter saying you won a $100 scholarship when there is a $50 application fee. You, in essence, lost $50 just applying for that scholarship.