How To Stand Out As an Applicant
Applying for scholarships and grants can sometimes feel like a daunting task. Even local ones can be competitive, with a number of eligible candidates competing for the prize pool. And while there is no guaranteed winning strategy, in this article we’re going to cover the tips and tricks to ensuring that your application is as strong as it can be.
Finding the Right Programs
To some, this task can be the most intimidating, but it really doesn’t have to be. If you are a high school student, oftentimes guidance departments will post or provide lists of scholarships/grants with eligibility requirements, with many of them being local and thus, less competitive. If you are in college, a good place to start would be your school’s financial aid services department (link: UCONN). Next, if you’ve exhausted your school’s resources, a quick internet search of “scholarships for (insert major/interest)” should yield a plethora of results.
Where Else Can You Look?
You’ve checked your school’s financial aid department sources, you’ve checked your major’s department for any prizes and awards, and you’ve done the generic Google search. Now what? Here’s a list of other monetary rocks you can look under:
Places of Employment. Many companies will offer scholarships to their employees and/or their relatives, thus limiting the amount of people eligible and applying.
The U.S. Department of Labor. Uncle Sam has got your back, with a database containing “more than 8,000 scholarships, fellowships, grants, and other financial aid award opportunities.”
Ethnicity-Based Organizations. These exist on local, state, and national levels, and are another great place to look for support.
National Vs. State/Local Scholarships/grants
Perhaps the most effective way to separate scholarships/grants into groups is national vs. state/local. This distinction is important, because they each have their perks and drawbacks. National scholarships/grants typically have a larger money pool, yielding more winners and bigger prizes, but are typically on more applicants’ radars, resulting in a far more competitive arena and smaller chance of winning. State and local scholarships/grants are typically limited to residents of the area, creating less competition, though they usually give out smaller prizes.
Our recommendation would be to create a balance between the two groups. Let’s say you have found five scholarships/grants for which you are eligible and can relate to. A good balance would be one national, four state/local. Though it may be tempting to apply for more national programs as they have larger prizes, the effort-to-payoff ratio is much smaller, whereas by creating a balance, you give yourself more assurance that you have a chance of winning something.
Applying for the Right Program
Are You and the Program a Good Fit?
Many programs are often based around a cause, field, or character that they are promoting. Some important questions to ask yourself are, “Am I a compatible candidate? Do I exemplify the traits valued by this organization? Do the expectations of this program coincide or interfere with my education and/or career plans?” Particularly in regards to the last question, more specifically targeted scholarships, like the Harry S. Truman Scholarship Foundation, require their candidates to be active in a particular field and pursuing certain career paths. When considering different awards and programs, consider your goals for both within and beyond your undergraduate degree, and apply to the programs that represent topics you feel closest to and are most passionate about. And, if there is one, it’ll make your essay (which we’ll get to later in this article) easier to write and feel more genuine.
Read the Requirements, Follow Directions
This may seem like a no-brainer, and it is, but it needs to be said, anyways. You don’t want to waste your time writing an essay and filling out forms for a scholarship/grant that will just toss your application when they see you haven’t followed protocol. Common mistakes include spelling and grammatical errors, the wrong amount of recommendation letters, including a name when essays specifically demand anonymity…
Give Yourself Plenty of Time
In order to ensure that your application is the best it can be, you have to give yourself time. Even if you are a professional procrastinator, not all elements of application depend solely on you. You have to take into account the amount of time it takes for a school to send a transcript if one is required, and have to provide ample time for letters of recommendation to be written.
Letters of Recommendation
One crucial factor in many program decisions is seeing what others have to say about you and your contributions to the classroom, the club, the community. So, you must choose someone you trust, that knows you well, preferably someone that has seen you in multiple facets and roles; as both a student and as president of the jelly-bean counting club.
The best way to approach this person truly depends on your level of comfort with them and their preferences. If you decide to meet in person, choose or schedule a time at which they won’t be rushed: if this is a professor, office hours may be the safest bet, not before or after a lecture. However, if your schedules do not seem to coincide, or if you know the person is especially busy, a well-written email with a resume attached along with any other relevant information may give the person adequate time to think over and respond your request.
Be courteous in your request. Acknowledge the fact that you respect their time and commitments and understand if they cannot commit to the task (and make sure you have substitutes at the ready if they can’t). If they agree to write the letter of recommendation for you, send them your resume as a supplement, and make sure to give them a date by which you need the letter (preferably at least a week before you must submit all application materials).
Reduce, Reuse, Recycle
Many programs have similar supplementary requirements and essay prompts (we’ll get to those next). To maximize the amount of scholarships/grants you can apply for and optimize the time spent perfecting each one, take your existing writing and adjust it to satisfy the needs of other competitions; just make sure that the essay answers the question or responds to the prompt powerfully and accurately.
Writing the Essay
Frightening, isn’t it? The blank page, the vague prompt, the writer’s block sinking in. Don’t worry, you’ll get through this. Here is a step-by-step process to writing a winning essay:
Step 1
Read the Instructions Carefully.
Said it once, will say it again.
Step 2
Research the Program’s Mission.
Does it believe in a cause? How do you exemplify the qualities this scholarship wants to promote and reward?
Step 3
What’s Your Thesis?
In other words, how would you answer the prompt in one sentence?
Step 4
Step 5
Step 6
Find Examples that Support the Thesis.
Brainstorm a number of applicable cases that support your answer. Just throw everything that could possibly work, don’t worry about choosing the best one just yet.
Choose the Most Original, Strong Example.
Okay, now you can worry about it. This is the step where you begin to separate yourself from the crowd. You are unique, and there are experiences you’ve had that no one else shares, and it is time to bring those to the limelight. If the question asks for your heroes, this is where you start to cross out the answers you think others could have put down. That means no celebrities, unless you actually met and spoke with them.
Be Personable and Personal...
Write in a way that seems authentic to you. If you aren’t the type to use large, fancy words, don’t use a thesaurus to find synonyms for “challenge.” The readers want to know you, so be yourself. That said, always find a way to bring the discussion back to yourself. How does this apply to YOU. Include anecdotes, anything that is unique and stands out.
Step 7
...But Stay Focused.
Make sure that everything you include has a direct connection to your thesis. The essay readers don’t have time for tangents, so stay on topic. If you need a long backstory for a small punchline, find something else. The essay needs to be direct, concise, and every sentence needs to somehow reaffirm why you would be a strong candidate for this award.
Step 8
Also, Be Specific.
Use every word to your advantage when writing about yourself. If you are writing about an experience, don’t just write about what you did, but also mention how it affected you and those around you, as well as what skills of yours it improved. “I taught first graders to read” is a good example, but it can be stronger if you say, “Teaching first graders to read was not only an outlet for me to give back to my community, but also reaffirmed my desire to teach…”
Step 9
Stay Positive.
If the essay asks for you to discuss an obstacle you faced, don’t dwell on the obstacle itself. Explain what it was, and then focus on how you combatted it. What steps did you take to move on? What strengths did you develop? What helped you?
Step 10
Step 11
Step 12
And Stay Within the Limits.
If there is a word count, stay within that word count. You don’t want to be disqualified on a technicality. One way to ensure that is to…
Edit, Edit, Edit.
Once you have a draft you’re proud of, one with all of the “stuff” and substance you need, start cutting. Read it aloud, as errors are easier to notice when you do. In the first stages of editing, check spelling and grammar. The further you go in the editing process, the more these errors tend to disappear from view as you become familiar with the text. After you’ve done that, go on to removing any redundant redundancies. Once it is as tight and concise as it can be, go back to checking grammar and spelling. Finally, when you feel you have done all that could,
Share It With Your Editor.
Find someone or a number of people you trust, someone that is known for their mastery in writing and rhetoric. It could be friends, family members, or even that same professor you approached for a letter of recommendation, if you haven’t yet piled too much onto their plate. Have them read it over, and provide any feedback they may have. It’s always good to have a fresh, unbiased set of eyes look at your work, as they may see areas of improvement that you would not have thought of.
Step 13
One Final, Sweeping Glance
Look over the whole application, reread the instructions. Make sure you have everything you need. Once you have done that, hold your breath and click “Submit.”
Step 14
Exhale.
You’re done! Mark your calendar for the anticipated acceptance date and wait for the results to come in. You’ve done the best you could, and that is all one could ask for. We wish you the best of luck.
One Final Thought
Applying for scholarships/grants, specifically writing for them, is an organic process; follow your judgment and instincts. You can write any number of outlines to prepare, but it’s often the case that you won’t know exactly what you want to say until you actually start working on the real thing. When writing, you begin to form connections between words and ideas and truly gain a grasp of what this program—and in turn, your education—means to you. Sometimes, you might even be in the middle of an essay when you have an epiphany: “Wait a minute. This isn’t what I want to do. This isn’t me!” You realize that the application you spent hours, days, weeks on is in fact not the right fit for you, and that is perfectly okay. If this happens, don’t bemoan the time that went into the application because it truly was not time lost; you’ve learned something about yourself today, and that is always a great victory.
References
https://www.internationalstudent.com/essay_writing/scholarship_essaysample/
https://www.collegeessayguy.com/blog/scholarship-essay-examples
https://www.princetonreview.com/college-advice/scholarship-essays
https://studentaid.ed.gov/sa/types/grants-scholarships/finding-scholarships
https://www.careeronestop.org/toolkit/training/find-scholarships.aspx