There is literally no one style to writing a scholarship winning essay. Every winner employs a unique style that draws insight into his present, past and future goals. Uniqueness is key to writing a good essay. Make the essay exclusive to you and you alone, avoid vague generations. Dig deep into your passions and your drive for wanting to succeed. It is this individuality that marks you out , catches the eyes of a judge and ultimately defines a scholarship winning essay.
StudyAbroad365 has compiled top 5 tips to writing a scholarship winning essay
(1) READ THE ESSAY QUESTIONS CAREFULLY AND PICK OUT KEY WORDS
If you are asked to write how your leadership skills and innovation enabled you to make a change in your community, identify key words as “leadership skills and change”.
(2) UNDERSTAND THE MEANING OF THE KEY WORDS
After picking out key words, understand what these words mean, beyond the ordinary level. For example, explain that the meaning of leadership involves the effects your leadership has-the actions you’ve taken and the results achieved under your leadership- and not merely the leadership positions you’ve held. The more meaning you bring to your explanation of those key words, the more examples you’ll be able to in corroborate in your essays.
(3) USE THE SCHOLARSHIP ESSAY KEYWORDS IN YOUR ESSAY
Using the scholarship essay keywords in your essay will show your understanding of the essay question and your overall commitment to addressing the question asked. For instance, if your essay centers on leadership, make a special effort to ensure words like ‘leadership’, ‘innovation’ and ‘impacting communities’ run through.
(4) ENGAGE THE JUDGE WITH YOUR FIRST PARAGRAPH
Make an engaging start to your essay. If you are thinking of how to begin your essay well, why not use a brief quote that relates to the body of your essay. Showing a wider aptitude and knowledge in your essay will convince your judges that investing in your education is worthwhile.
(5) KNOW WHAT THE SCHOLARSHIP CRITERIA IS
You can’t write an award winning essay, if you don’t know the application’s criteria. If the essay revolves around community work and leadership, endeavor to cover every ground and leave your judge with no doubt of your understanding of the essay question.
STUDY ABROAD 365 HAS COMPILED A LIST OF 3 SCHOLARSHIP WINNING SAMPLES
EXAMPLE 1
Scholarship Essay Example 1 addresses the following question: “Choose a book or books that have affected you deeply and explain why.” In this case, the applicant has chosen the novel Germinal by Emile Zola. The essay is strong and well-written, although not without its flaws.
At 13, I was an ordinary teenage girl. I had my favorite movie stars, my secret crushes, and I probably ate too much chocolate. School mattered very little to me and learning even less. I worried about getting good grades in school but only to please my parents. My happy life consisted of sweet treats and even sweeter thoughts, an endless array of bite-sized banality. All that changed the summer of my 13th year, the year my older sister went away to college.
I idolized my older sister. She was five years older than me and my link to the shadowy world of adulthood that seemed so out of reach. When she went away, I was devastated. It was a very wet summer that year and one particularly rainy day, I was lying in her empty bed looking at the artifacts she’d left behind, clutching an old sweater. My eyes travelled around the room and came to rest on her bookshelf. For whatever reason, I picked one book up and began thumbing through it. It was Emile Zola’s Germinal and it was to change my life forever.
Germinal woke me up from my slumber. I began to see the world around me, to look at it with new eyes. I always thought things like poverty, greed and injustice happened elsewhere, to people that more or less deserved it. But the more I read about Etienne, Catherine, and the Vandame mine, the more I began to realize the universal nature of suffering. This is part of what makes Zola’s novel a great work of art. It has the power to change the way you think while also being beautiful. I realized that there were actually striking miners in my own state. I then became an avid reader of newspapers and current events. I held a bake sale outside my school for the families of the miners. I didn’t raise that much money but it felt good to at least to be doing something.
The affect Germinal had on me was not just limited to social awareness. I also became more aware of other literature, history, and art. I read other Zola novels which led me to discover Balzac and his wonderful books such as the sweet sad tale of Pere Goriot. I also became interested in the French Revolution in order to find out how the month of Germinal came to get its name. When I learned that the young Zola was a early champion and admirer of Monet and the Impressionists, I began to notice art for the first time.
Now that I am getting ready for college, I feel the effect that Germinal had on me more than ever. I’ve read it three times since I first discovered it and each time I seem to learn new things. It isn’t just that I have a pet rabbit named Poland or that I have a pen-pal who is an orphaned miner’s daughter. It goes much deeper than that. Germinal has changed the way I look at myself and the world around me. No other book has done that.
EXAMPLE 2:
The scholarship essay example 2 question (Who has been the most influential person in your life?) is a common scholarship prompt. The example posted here is a winning scholarship submission that deals effectively and affectionately with the question.
As we sped down the highway, the quiet and calming hum of the car seemed somehow at odds with the late-summer lushness of the Pennsylvania landscape. Without warning this quiet calm was shattered when my Uncle Alex yelled, “Firsts!”
“Uh, military railroads”, I mumbled, drawing myself out of a sleepy reverie.
“A working submarine”, Alex countered quickly.
“Hospital ships.”
“Flame throwers.”
Back and forth we went. We were playing one of our many Civil War word games. This one consisted of calling out all of the many things that the Civil War saw the first instance of. It was a great way to pass time when on a long road trip. I remember this particular trip with such clarity for two reasons. One was that we were on our way to visit Wheatland, the home of James Buchanan, a destination that I had been looking forward to for some time. The second reason is that the very next day was my birthday. I was turning eight.
I suppose for most children it would have seemed strange to be spending their birthday at the former home of a pre-Civil War president. To me it only seemed like a long-awaited treat. My Uncle Alex was an amateur Civil War historian with an infectious love of learning. Alex’s sickness took the form of believing that late 19th century American history was more exciting and more worthy of our attention than any other period of human existence. It would prove to be an illness that soon held me under it’s spell also. It all started when Alex bought me an Abraham Lincoln action figure for my 4th birthday. I remember unwrapping the gift paper, revealing the strange gaunt figure as my Uncle described to me in hushed tones who this man was and what he had done for our country. The real gift that Alex gave me over the years, however, was that he never acted as if it were odd for a young boy to have a keen interest in history. Because staying up late debating whether or not Stonewall Jackson was a hypochondriac was treated as perfectly normal, perfectly normal it became.
Looking back, I first remember thinking about what I would later realize was ethics or morals in relation to Robert E. Lee and his decision to support his home state of Virginia against the Union. My first contemplation of death took place after reading the correspondence of a young Union soldier who was shot and killed at Manassas before his younger bride ever received his letter. In short, my entire awareness has been shaped and influenced by my Uncle Alex’s colorful pedagogy. I don’t know what my life would have been without his influence but it certainly would have been different. I’m grateful that I shall never know.
Uncle Alex didn’t just teach me about a period of history. He taught me about life. He taug
