Essay is one of the most important part of scholarship application. What do I mean by that? What I meant when I made that statement is that in your scholarship application, essay is one of the important factors that determine whether or not you will get the scholarship or not. Many students with good academic grades have lost the opportunities of getting some scholarships simply because they were not able to craft good essays on the topic that they were assigned.
Most of the scholarships that I have applied for in the past required essays in the past required essays for the application and I can most frankly tell you that I did not do so well in those essays( at least then. Some of these scholarships are: WELLS MOUNTAIN SCHOLARSHIP, Japanese MEXT scholarship, Indian Government scholarship, USA opportunity Funds scholarship and others.
Because of this, I spent months read books and blog posts on how to write good essays. Apart from my personal research, I also sought that advice of my friends who won some the scholarships. But even after all these, I still felt that I did not know anything as long as scholarship essays were concerned. I really wanted to give up applying for scholarships as no result was forth coming after several trials.
I was motivated by my friends’ success so i decided to give it a second thought. The following year, I reapplied for the scholarships and also some new ones too. The first scholarship that I reapplied for was WELLS MOUNTAIN SCHOLARSHIP. After the submission of my documents on the scholarship website, I forgot everything and moved on with life; you may be wondering why i had to do that. Well I did not just want to give myself unnecessary worries after several failures. After the Wells Mountain Scholarship Application, I did apply for other scholarships too. I applied for MEXT and Japanese Government scholarships.
Out of the three scholarships that I applied for, I was nominated for two- MEXT and WELLS MOUNTAIN scholarships. I was very happy for this; at least, my hard work was yielding fruits.
Without much ado, I will take you direct to the topic of discussion here: How to write a winning scholarship Essay
TAKE NOTE OF THE FOLLOWING:
1: Whenever you are applying for anything (like scholarship, fellowship, residency program or even conference) and you are asked to state why you should be selected, this is what your focus should be on:-
Tell them that you are applying because you see the opportunity to equip your self and be of assistance to others.
Tell them that you are just a link in the long chain of events and you want to ensure that you are not the weak link.
Tell them you want to see positive changes within your community, and you want to start with yourself.
Tell them that you are part of the 1% in population who are willing to roll up their sleeves and get the work done.-Tell them you want to leave things far better than you met them.
2: Never you bring in negative energy or blame game in your answers. Focus on the work ahead. Focus on solutions. Focus on possibilities.
ALWAYS Remember : it is not really about you. It is about the lives that can be transformed through you. See yourself as the channel. See yourself as the link. There’s work to be done, so let’s get back to it.