Archives For essay

Essays

— 2 Comments

The dreaded essay.  This one item creates more fear, angst, and uncertainty in the scholarship application process than any other.  I can’t tell you how many times my son just had no idea how to start.  The essay assignment is generally pretty vague, which is intentional.  The scholarship selection committee wants to see how you think more than anything else.  Let’s take a look at the steps to creating a high-quality essay.

  1. Begin early.  Like the recommendation and reference process, this is not something to work on the night before it is due.
  2. Assemble a trusted team of advisors and confidants.  You need someone to edit/proofread, someone to help you assemble your thoughts, someone to review for content and flow, and someone to perform the sniff test (to see if it stinks).  This can be one or several persons, but the more eyes you put on your essay the better.  They should care about you enough to hurt your feelings, but for your own good.
  3. Carefully consider the question being asked or the topic given to you.  Ideally the topic (and your response) will generate passion that comes from personal experience or firsthand knowledge of the topic.
  4. If you have multiple topics to choose from, and you’re not sure which to pick, ask others which one they would choose.
  5. Pay attention to the rules.  You want to be sure that you submit the essay properly and aren’t disqualified based on a technicality.
  6. Put together an outline and review that with your advisory team.  It will help you organize your thoughts.
  7. Form your thoughts properly.  Using sales presentation techniques, keep this in mind – tell them what you’re going to tell them, tell them, and tell them what you just told them.  Introduction, key points and details, summary.
  8. Resist the urge to be politically correct.  The scholarship selection committee wants to hear your ideas and your opinions, so don’t be afraid of stepping on toes.
  9. Speak your response then play it back as you transcribe your thoughts to print.  Since we tend to speak in short sentences, this will eliminate long run-on sentences and big, unnecessary words.
  10. Once you have typed the essay, do the basics – let your word processor do spell check and grammar checks.
  11. Read the essay and remove filler words and phrases along with any redundant sentences or statements. 
  12. Get the essay to your advisory team to check for content and flow of ideas, then make recommended edits.
  13. Re-read your essay and see if it adequately addresses the topic, and just to make sure that it sounds like you, and make any final edits. 
  14. Put it back in the hands of your advisory team then make any last-minute adjustments prior to submission.
  15. Thank your advisory team – they are an invaluable part of the process.

So you see, an essay is more than sitting down and spilling your thoughts.  There is a lot of work involved if you want a good essay.  Each essay should be unique so you may have to do this several times, but each time you’ll get better at it.  The essay is often the deciding factor in a sea of highly-qualified applicants.  Take the time to do it right.

Join today to receive my FREE e-book "Parent's Guide To College Savings"
Name: Email:
In Uncategorized , , , , , ,
permalink

Depth or breadth?

— 1 Comment

When looking to round out an admission or scholarship resume, one of the categories that comes up is involvement in activities.  Is it better to go wide and be involved in as many activities as possible, or go deep and be heavily involved in a few choice activities?  While it might look more impressive to list as many activities as possible, sometimes too much is, well, just too much.

As you can imagine some of those activities really don’t add much clout to your resume.  Instead, they just take up room on the which, at some point, leaves the reader a little weary. Many of the clubs, activities, and organizations that you might list are really open for membership to anyone who wants to join or who is willing to pay money to join.  The more of those that are on your application or resume, the more clutter you have added.  Those don’t add meaning or depth to your credentials.  Instead, they just tell the reader that you were very busy.

Volunteer activities are always good to list on your resume or application.  Committees love to see applicants who serve others without expectation of compensation or benefit.  The longer that you’re involved in the volunteer organization, the better.  If you held any leadership positions or coordinated any volunteer activities, be sure to highlight those.  Paid work experiences can be good; they indicate an ability to handle work alongside of school.  If you’ve done any entrepreneurial activities, those are excellent for describing your initiative, work ethic, and creativity.

If you’re an academic type, do you think it helps to list every math team meet, scholar’s bowl competition, or science olympiad?  My recommendation on these types of activities is to only list those where you were a winner or runner-up of an event; I don’t think it really helps to list all of those fifth and sixth place finishes.  If you were a team captain, then that should be stated as well.  This gives the reader some indication as to previous leadership responsibilities that you might have held.

For all the clubs and organizations that you were in, the vast majority of those are simply filler on a resume or application.  Band, sports, and other mass-participation activities don’t really add value unless you are applying for a talent-based scholarship related to that activity.  If you were an officer in one of these organizations, be sure to include that for the leadership points.  If the organization is one of the honor societies, then those are also good to put on the form.  Religious affiliation and activities may not be of value on the application unless they support the other items (likely leadership or volunteerism) that are on your form, or unless the application is for a religion-based school or scholarship.

The key is that you be prepared to tell the story behind the information that you include.  You may be called upon to submit an essay or sit for an interview so be sure that your application backs your story.  It’s my opinion that scholarship and selection committees are looking for substance over quantity, so choose depth.  They want students who are committed to a cause, show passion for that cause by their activity and involvement, and have been profoundly impacted through their activities.  The more that your application reflects the person you are, the easier it will be to tell your story.

Join today to receive my FREE e-book "Parent's Guide To College Savings"
Name: Email:
In Uncategorized , , , , , , , , , , , ,
permalink

How to apply for scholarships

— 1 Comment

One of the most important things that a parent can know in order to help their student is how to apply for scholarships.  The earlier a parent knows about this process, the more prepared they will be when the time comes for their child.  Even parents of middle school children will benefit from knowing this process and going through several dry runs.  There are both competitive and non-competitive scholarships based on all kinds of qualifications.  There are scholarships offered by the college, also called institutional or internal scholarships, and those offered by numerous external organizations, which we’ll call external scholarships.  Let’s take a look at the application process for both types of scholarships.

For internal scholarships at 99% of all colleges, the priority scholarship application deadline is December 1 of your child’s senior year.  Specific scholarships may have different deadlines.  Also, in order to be considered for any internal scholarship, you must be admitted to the college. The general scholarship application process is as follows; some schools might not require some of these steps:

  1. Apply for admission to the college.
  2. Submit any required fees, transcripts, and test scores to the college.
  3. Visit the school’s scholarship website.
  4. Research the specific scholarship application requirements.  Some schools have one general application, others have separate applications for various scholarships.
  5. Complete the general scholarship application (if any).
  6. Submit any required essays, resumes, or other materials required to support the general scholarship application.
  7. Identify any special internal scholarships that have different application requirements.
  8. Complete the specific scholarship application for each scholarship in this category.
  9. Submit any required essays, resumes, or other materials required to support each of your specific scholarship applications.
  10. Follow up on any requests for additional information or scheduled interviews.

For external scholarships, the application process can vary widely.  In general, though, the process will be the same as specific internal scholarships, as follows:

  1. Contact the committee or individual responsible for the scholarship application process.
  2. Ask for specific directions and procedures to complete the scholarship application.
  3. Complete the scholarship application form.
  4. Submit any required essays, resumes, or other materials required to support the scholarship application.
  5. Follow up on any requests for additional information or scheduled interviews.

More to come in subsequent posts about interviews, resumes, essays, and other supporting scholarship application materials.  The most important thing is to understand the process, pay attention to deadlines, and submit all required materials as dictated by the college or organization.

Join today to receive my FREE e-book "Parent's Guide To College Savings"
Name: Email:
In Uncategorized , , , , , ,
permalink