How to Write a Scholarship Essay?

Winning a scholarship or any other financial aid can be life-changing, especially for students from low-income backgrounds. However, earning a scholarship is no cakewalk since there’s a limited number of awards and a high number of applicants. Hence, knowing how to write a winning scholarship essay is essential to increase your chances of winning the award.

What is a Scholarship Essay?

Before we learn how to write a winning scholarship essay, let's first understand what a scholarship essay is. Unlike regular academic essays, a scholarship essay is written to help the scholarship provider to learn about you. The essay is somewhat similar to the personal statement of a college application essay and should highlight your ambitions, goals, and the person you are beyond your grades and test scores.

How to Write a Scholarship Essay – Structuring Explained

There’s no right answer to how to structure a scholarship essay. If you review scholarship essay examples by toppers, you’ll find that the structuring is subjective and depends on one’s writing style. Nonetheless, you can follow the common essay structure for your scholarship essay.

Introduction – Typically comprises 1-2 paragraphs introducing the main points of your essay with a hook or attention-grabbing sentence related to your essay.
Body – The count of body paragraphs varies between 1-3 paragraphs focusing on the main details like what made you the person you are today, your interests, hobbies, and what drives you to pursue higher education. Remember to mention how winning the scholarship will help you achieve your goal. Give examples and share instances to make it sound humanlike.
Conclusion – The conclusion usually comprises one paragraph explaining how winning the scholarship will help you in achieving your goals.

Formatting a Scholarship Essay

If there’s no mention of any formatting guidelines, do the following to format your essay:

Carefully read the essay formatting guidelines
Set your document with a 1-inch margin top, bottom, and side
Use clean fonts like Times New Roman or Arial
Set the font size to 12 pt
Crosscheck the structure and follow the standard instructions before submitting your essay by email, online form, or mail.

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10 Tips on How to Write a Compelling Scholarship Essay

Scholarship essays give you the opportunity to demonstrate why you. The scholarship committee particularly wants to know what makes you stand out from the rest in the race, how the scholarship fits your goals, and how you will use the award money. Hence, your aim should be to give the committee members a clear sense of you as someone who doesn't reflect on your resume. Below are some effective suggestions to ease your writing process.

Start early – don’t procrastinate

Students often apply for scholarships to overcome financial stringencies and complete their education with the burden of hefty college fees. With so much riding on it, leaving it until the last minute is similar to jeopardizing your future. Instead of postponing, get started at the earliest. Take your time and brainstorm ideas. When you have enough time, you can write and edit until you have the perfect piece.

Understand the primary mission & purpose

No matter which scholarship provider you choose, each has specific criteria the applicant must fulfill. So before you start writing, research the scholarship provider carefully and learn about its mission and purpose. Elaborate on the interests or experience that aligns with the organization’s goals and missions to show genuine interest and enthusiasm.

Follow the essay writing instructions to the dot

Like other essays, scholarship essays too follow specific writing guidelines and submission instructions that you must follow. The last thing you want is to lose thousands of dollars worth of scholarships because you neglected the instructions. So double-check the essay instructions and get your doubts cleared if you have any.

Be honest about everything you write in your essay

Yes, you want to portray that your life is interesting and you play an important role in your community. But lying in your essay or making up instances to sound "unique" and "interesting" will do you more harm than good. The committee members value authenticity and can easily spot baloney. Instead of stating something just for the sake of it, paint a vivid picture of what you have genuinely done to help your readers understand your values and struggles.

Don’t beat behind the bush with unnecessary details

The scholarship committee read hundreds of essays regularly. Your writing approach should be specific and concise so readers can easily understand what you are trying to state. Pick direct, easy-to-understand words for more effective results. Strictly avoid generalizing or using ornamental language to sound “smart.”

Demonstrate your resilience and your problem-solving abilities

Most scholarship prompts ask applicants about the hardships they have overcome to get where they are. The committee members prefer such questions because they enable them to understand a student's journey and their resilience to solve problems and achieve bigger goals. So give a narration of your struggles and discuss how you overcame them. We recommend you focus on one central idea to stay focused and within the word limit.

Sell yourself without sounding like a brag

Your scholarship essay is your chance to highlight your accomplishments and qualities and show why you deserve the scholarship. That said, don't just list every accomplishment of your since childhood and sound boastful of your contribution to your class or community. It's essential to find a balance and be humble with your approach.

For example, instead of saying, “As a student who is the best in class, the caption of the baseball team, and product volunteer at the animal shelter, I believe I deserve this scholarship,” say, “The hard work I put into my studies and volunteer work reflects how dedicated and sincerely I intend to work to succeed in my course, and I would be immensely grateful for the financial aid to accomplish my college goals.”

Don't forget to thank the readers at the end

Your essay should demonstrate your dedication, integrity, and character. By saying thank the readers, we don't mean to say you add generic lines such as "Thank you for taking the time out to read this essay" at the end of your paper. Instead of going overboard and bloating your essay with generic thank-you notes, be direct and say thank you, in short, to keep things professional and thoughtful. If you don't have enough word count to fit your thank you line, you can leave it off your essay.

Revise, proofread, and edit to make it PERFECT

Many professional essay writers suggest that a good write-up is all about rewriting it until the quality is satisfactory, and it's true as flawless work takes time and multiple revisions. Therefore, spare yourself enough time to revise and edit. Before starting the revision process, distance yourself from the essay for a while – maybe a few days. That way, when you return to it, you can review it with a fresh eye, making it easier to locate errors and make corrections.

Rope in someone for constructive feedback

Getting someone to read your essay for feedback is always a good idea. You may not know all the writing rules and formatting guidelines as a student. But if you request someone with good writing skills and language diction, you will get productive suggestions and can make the necessary corrections to improve the quality. If you don’t find someone in your circle for the necessary support, you can connect with online editors and proofreaders for professional suggestions. Many top-ranked, skilled editing specialists are available online to extend prompt support.

You’ll find tons of scholarships relevant to your course, traits, interest, and accomplishments. Apply as many of them as you can to increase your chances, and use the tips mentioned above to ease your writing process and create a flawless essay.

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