How to Write a Scholarship Essay?

To write a quality essay, it’s vital to spend time researching and preparing beforehand to ensure great impression on the scholarship committee. Each essay would offer a distinctive style employed by the author; a unique insight into writer’s past, present and future aspirations. This uniqueness is the key, and the foremost point to remember, when starting to write. Scholarship essay should be exclusive, personalized and depicting passion and drive to study the relevant subject.

A scholarship essay is supposed to be a reflection of writer’s identity, including student’s dedication, desires, life circumstances, positivity, accomplishments, and justified financial hurdles in pursuing further education. Some scholarship essay pointers can enhance the depth of writing and will take some steps closer to realising the dream.

How to start a Scholarship Essay

• Commence early: Get started early on scholarship essay research and organizing to get enough time to focus on quality rather than to feel pressured to submit essay before deadline. The rush of the last minute always compromises on quality and leads to regular repetitive results.
  
• Research well the Scholarship provider: Research the organization or company offering the scholarship to be well versed with their values and kind of qualities they might be looking for in the essay.
  
• Purpose of a Scholarship Essay: The Scholarship Essay is expected to depict one’s strengths, interests, achievements, and goals as well as to give a glimpse of personality. It is also believed to be a justified demonstration of deserving element as to why one should be given the scholarship. 
  
• Grabbing initial attention:  One needs to break the ice at the very beginning itself by either powerful quotes that is intricate with personality, or number of awards achieved or any engrossing statistics, or else kick it off with an anecdote.

How to write a Scholarship Essay

During actual writing process, there are few crucial points to consider:

• Be in sync with the topic and instructions- Scholarship essays usually have a maximum word count one should avoid exceeding. Read instruction few times to ensure to follow them. Format of the essay should also be taken into account, so as not later need to edit the essay. Essay statements include key themes that one needs to incorporate into the essay time and again.
  
• Understand the key themes- After identifying the key themes, it is important to spread them according to their meaning. The more depth one brings to understanding the meaning of each theme, the more one can demonstrate their abilities.
  
• Identify the criteria used by scholarship committee to evaluate application essays- The themes of leadership and community impact are for example, advisable to be addressed from all aspects in the essay, whether the question explicitly asks for it or not.
  
• Draw an outline with appropriate structure- An outline can help keep thoughts organized and prevents from straying off topic or disrupting flow of writing. Outline of the essay includes an introduction, conclusion, and for the body of the essay, jot down headings, subheadings and a brief note about what will be written in each paragraph or section.
  
• Anecdotes incorporated for authenticity- Scholarship committee always yearns more to learn more about one as an individual and so personal experiences are a great way of presenting self-portrayal.  Relevant to the essay prompt, one might include a story about how one has contributed to the community.
  
• Emphasize the resilience- While describing any hardship to overcome; the reader gets a chance to understand a student’s resilience and ability to solve problems. These characteristics are huge on a scholarship essay.

Scholarship Essay Format

• It needs to adhere to consistent professional style as 1-inch page margin, a 12-point font size double spaced and a standard script like Times New Roman in classic black.
  
• The essay submission format determines that whether there is a need to add the essay question or prompt or not at the top of the essay.

The structure of the essay includes-

Introduction: A relevant beginning line with a strong point that proves determination and drive to attend college.
Body- Further extending critical points in the essay format, support claims with proofs, examples, and facts. This includes inspiring moments, interests, hobbies, desires and value of scholarship and how will it help to reach academic or personal goals.
Conclusion- It can be wrapped up by expressing gratitude for this opportunity and how earning this award might help to achieve goals and have a broader community impact. Also how critical this scholarship is for one’s success.
Character Limit- As a rule of thumb, 250 words is equivalent to one typed page, double spaced. Therefore 500 words = 2 typed, double spaced pages.
Be specific and concise- The simplest and most direct word choices are the most effective. Avoid generalizations in specific examples. Likewise, avoid flowery language in more succinct sentences.
Proofread- To see the essay from fresh eyes, walk away from the work and clear the mind. Then come back to it to read it from different perspective.

Do's and Don'ts of writing a scholarship essay:

Do’s

• Mention achievements
  
• Understand the prompts
  
• Be authentic and personal
  
• Edit and proofread

Don’ts

• Never plagiarise the content
  
• Avoid drama and emotions too much
  
• Stick to the deadline
  
• Irrelevant essay according to the prompt