Do you find it challenging to craft a winning scholarship essay?
As applications and entries for scholarships continue to rise in their tens and hundreds of thousands for limited number of awards, scholarship hosts have resorted to using essays to as a criteria for selecting their awardees and winners.
We have come up with the secrets ad tips of how to write winning scholarship essays in this article.
You will be able to confidently draft at least one scholarship essay if you read this post to the end.
Scholarship Essays
The grades and CGPA are determining factors for winning a scholarship, but they do not do it all.
Scholarship essays give you the plain platter to be able to tell the selection committee about yourself, your motivation for applying, achievements, and in some cases how the scholarship will benefit your community.
Writing is an art that tells the extent to which you have read and understood a particular concept.
A good comes from a thoughtful mind, a reader, problem-solver, and a researcher combined. This is why some companies and organizations resort to Essay Writing Contest in lieu of just reviewing academic transcripts, UTME scores and admission letters.
Types of Scholarship Essays
As mentioned earlier, scholarship essays presents you the opportunity to sell yourself to the selection committee.
You are able to reveal your personality and character, and further explain what your academic CV, and transcript are unable to reveal. You can tell personal stories, experiences, and life goals. You are able to also give reasons for your low grades or GPA.
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Personal Statements
A personal statement is an essay of your person. It is a summary of your personal achievements, strengths, uniqueness, motivation, career goals, and accomplishments. Usually between 500 and 1000 words in length, a personal statement is the essay form of your resume.
Usually, undergraduate scholarships can ask applicants to write on “Why you should be awarded this scholarship”, while Masters and PhD scholarships require applicants to write a personal statement.
In both cases, you are to write about your passion for your chosen program, volunteering or work experiences, and academic background. Undergraduate students can include financial reasons on why they should be considered for the scholarship.
We have compiled a list of winning essays here for your perusal. Please note that they are only for your guide and not for you to plagiarise.
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Statement of Purpose (SOP)
A statement of purpose is a detailed essay on your motivation for applying for a particular scholarship or program, as well as your suitability for it.
A well-written SOP contains five to six paragraphs. The first paragraph is your motivation for applying for the program or scholarship. You can begin with a story, past experience, a related challenge faced by your country, or a cliché.
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The second and third paragraph will outline your academic background (mention your bachelors degree and thesis if applying for a postgraduate scholarship), work and research experiences that make you a suitable applicant for the scholarship.
Here, you are expected to quantify, mention achievements, and what the experiences you have gathered instilled in you.
Your fourth paragraph is the paragraph for your volunteering, community service experiences. You are allowed to also mention your skills, leadership experience, and certifications in this paragraph.
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In the next two paragraphs, you are expected to pitch your research idea or interest (Postgraduate scholarship) or what you intend to use the scholarship for, and how it can catalyse the achievement of your goals as an undergraduate student.
You should also ensure that these goals are in alignment with those of the organizers of the scholarship.
Highlighting the unique features of the host country (for international scholarships), and your intention to use the scholarship to benefit your immediate community upon the completion of your program is very germane.
MasterCard Foundation Scholarships are usually very peculiar about these.
Essay Competitions
Many other scholarships hosts resort to essay contests as they enable them gather insights and information from different students on how certain national or economic problems can be solved.
In some cases, the challenges may be of those facing the host of the contest.
Tips on how to write winning scholarship essays
- Be sufficiently passionate about the topic/scholarship to be able to undergo the rigour of producing a winning essay, article, story or any written entry.
- Brainstorme and pen down the summary of your ideas on the topic before doing any research
- Make sufficient research about the organizer, its activities, achievements, challenges and the objectives of the contest/scholarship
- Study the winning entries/ personal statements of past winners in at least the last 3 years (if available)
- Gather insights and information from several sources, and cite them as appropriate.
- Draft out an outline for the content of each paragraph of your essay bearing in mind the the requirements such as word counts, font size, font family, paragraph spacing and required document format.
- Edit and proofread your draft as many times as possible before you meet.
- Take walks, cook, read books, visit the malls, if you need inspiration of what to pen down.
Essay Competitions for your practice
Common mistakes in Scholarship Essays
- Procrastination: The draft of your essay should be written as often as you remember a point. Delaying your writing makes you rush to submit an unedited and unsatiafactory essay on deadline day.
- Late submission: Scholarship essays are reviewed as soon as entries are trooping in, the earlier you submit, the higher your chances of winning.
- Plagiarism and AI-Generated Essays: Hosts especially of international scholarships frown seriously at plagiarism and AI-generated contents. You easily get disqualified, and withdrawn if you are accidentally awarded.
- Disjointed Thoughts and Paragraphs: Your paragraphs should follow a sequence, and should be easily comprehended. Paragraphs that are not congruent makes no meaning to the reader.
- Not Editing or Proofreading: An unedited or un-proofread essay will most likely be filled with howlers. You will not be present to defend this.
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