- Be certain to carefully review and follow any essay format requirements including topic selection and length. Although the readers of your essay are surely interested in your accomplishments, they do not need a list so extensive that it includes your third-grade kickball participation award.
- Spend the extra buck and send your scholarship essay on high-quality paper – in this case you truly only get one first impression.
- Although you may want to seem hip and current, the use of slang or foul language is pretty much universally frowned upon. Off-color comments or jokes that may seem humorous when told in person can seem offensive and generally get lost in translation. This would include any comments that have potentially racial, ethnic, sexist or religious overtones. Also, this includes any jokes that you ever heard in gym class, the locker room, or Hebrew school.
- Try to avoid overemphasizing reasonably mundane accomplishments. While you will certainly want to call attention to the fact that you made the deans list twice, it is equally important to keep in mind that so did dozens and perhaps hundreds of other scholarship applicants. Simply put, no one likes someone with a big head. This includes belittling the achievements of others to bolster your own accomplishments.
- Do not focus too heavily upon potentially negative attributes. While none of us are perfect, and all scholarship essay applicants want to seem friendly and accessible, the reviewers do not need to know about your gambling system for playing the ponies or your recent successful stint at rehab. Remember that although certain behaviors may seem fine to you, the only opinion that matters is the administrator’s reading your scholarship essay. If you have a question as to whether or not to leave mention of something out – it goes.
- Remember to include any relevant non-academic accomplishments. While your friends may give you the business about being the 19th best chess player in your state, stuff like that can sometimes be a determinative factor to a committee.
- You’ve heard the term everyone is a comedian, right? Wrong! More students than you might think try to be funny or “creative” in their scholarship essay application and it very rarely works out well for them. When someone reading through a pile of essays gets to one that attempts to be funny or creative but does not immediately catch their attention – flush. The only thing more boring than reading through 60 papers in an afternoon is having some of them be from “comedians” who did not really follow the essay format requirements.
- After you have drafted you essay, make sure to read it several times and then put it away for a couple of days. Then take it out and have another try at editing it. You may be surprised at the difference a day can make. This is why it is important never to try and do last minute college scholarship essay writing.
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