scholarship essays

[kcguy]

One of my friends manages a small scholarship fund for a non-profit, and I recently spent a couple afternoons judging scholarship essays, along with a handful of other people.  It’s something I’ve done for several years now.

It’s never occurred to me to find out the original question students were expected to answer.  Guessing by the judging criteria, I’m guessing it was something like “Tell me your career goals, what you’ve done so far to attain them, and what you plan to do in the future.”


Anyhow, since some of you are students, I’m going to try to give some advice on the kinds of things I react to.  Keep in mind that these might not apply to scholarships judged by other criteria.

•   Buzzwords don’t impress me.  I don’t care if you demonstrate “determination” or “leadership”, and I especially don’t care if you have “grit”.
•   A one-page essay should have more than one paragraph and fewer than ten.
•   Avoid inserting quotes from famous people into your essay.  There’s nothing wrong with them, per se, but it’s a different voice from the rest of the essay, and I don’t think it tends to work very well.
•   Proofread your essay.  Maybe have someone else proofread it.  A single typo can sink an entire essay, if it’s egregious enough.  (For example, if you meant to type “assess”, make sure you haven’t typed “asses”.)
•   This may be a personal pet peeve, but don’t go out of your way to mention God in your essay.  Unless you’re a theology major, I find it off-putting.
•   It works best if you pick a major and a career goal and don’t waffle.  Just be sincere in your intentions.  For our scholarship, at least, we’re not going to track you down five years from now to see if you’ve followed your original path.
•   Organize your essay so that I know what your major and/or career goal are.  Focus your essay around these.  There have been essays which I've had to re-read, only to find a mention of medical school buried somewhere in the middle of paragraph 4.
•   Don’t tell me how you can’t afford college.  The cost of college is something that intimidates most people; you’re not unique.  Besides, we’re not a need-based scholarship.  You’re wasting a limited amount of space when you could instead be saying something that would impress me.
•   Generally speaking, don’t tell me your family’s sob story.  If you begin an essay telling me how you witnessed your mother’s murder and then proceed to tell me that you want to become a software developer, it’s going to rub me the wrong way.  However, if you tell me instead that you want to want to go into law enforcement or social work, I’m going to be a lot more sympathetic if you can connect the dots of how one led to the other.
•   Generally speaking, I don’t care what clubs you’re involved in, but there are always exceptions.  If you want to be a nuclear engineer, don’t waste time telling me that you were a member of Future Farmers of America.  However, if you’re pursuing a business administration degree in hopes of eventually running your family’s tractor supply business, then it might not hurt to spend two or three sentences on FFA and what you’ve gained from it.
•   Generally speaking, don’t tell me about your minor.  If you want to study genetic diseases, don’t tell me about your minor in Scandinavian languages.  Unless. . .you then explain about how Iceland’s unique history of endogamy and good recordkeeping makes it one of the best places in the world for genetic research.  (This illustrates a broader point.  Some of the best essays occur when someone takes a negative or neutral fact about themselves and finds a way to tie it into their main theme.)
•   Do tell me about your relevant work experience.  This is probably the thing that will earn the highest marks from me.  However, notice that I said “relevant”.  If you tell me that you worked at Taco Bell, you’d then better tell me how (a) you want to pursue a degree in restaurant management; or (b) you’re interested in becoming a food safety inspector; or (c) you want to study the effects of pumping grease waste into the environment; or (d) etc.  If none of these things apply, then you’ve basically wasted space that could have been devoted to more relevant topics, and I will notice.
•   After work experience, the next thing I look for is relevant volunteer experience.  If you want to be a veterinarian, I wouldn’t mind hearing about your time at an animal shelter.  If you want to be an architect, talk about Habitat for Humanity.  Broadcasting?  Ever participate in a PBS pledge drive?  For a social sciences major, maybe you can find some way to tie your proposed career into an oral history project.  You get the idea.
•   If all else fails, tell me about your interests.  If you want to become a political science major, maybe spend two or three sentences telling  me your opinion on the Wisconsin redistricting case before the Supreme Court.  Although, I’m sure no one on this website has an opinion on that.  (I’ve seen a couple of essays that seemed like someone had just read a Wikipedia article on some very specific topic.  They weren’t the best essays, but surprisingly they tended to be above average because they were at least specific and avoided the sin of vagueness.  Of course, when expressing an opinion, keep in mind how knowledgeable/biased your intended audience may be about your topic.)
•   Tell me what event in your childhood prompted you to pursue a career in x.  Don’t spend more than a paragraph on this—unless you can tie it into the work or volunteer experience thing—but it’s often a good way to begin an essay.
•   Try to talk about things you’re enthusiastic about, but don’t try to fake enthusiasm.
•   Do little things specific to your major.  I appreciate it when English majors have large vocabularies and when accounting majors quantify things.
•   A little humor in the first or last paragraph will at least make me smile.  Tell me how you were inspired to study instrumental music by Benny Goodman, Louis Armstrong, and Lisa Simpson.
•   Be unique.  Surprise me.  I feel like I read the same things over and over again, so please tell me that you want to study to be a land surveyor or a mortician.  The scholarships I like best often have some detail that comes out of left field.

Anyhow, those are my thoughts.  I’m not sure how good my advice is or how well it applies to other types of scholarships.  If anyone else out there has experience with scholarship essays, I’ve love to hear other perspectives.