COLLEGE ADMISSION AND SCHOLARSHIP APPLICATION ESSAYS

A Manual Guide to Masters and PhD Students   A Manual Guide for Writing College Admissions Essay Writing a college admission or application essay is undoubtedly one of the most daunting tasks to a majority of graduate students seeking admission into masters or PhD programs.  This is mainly because most of the students perceive this essay as the most important in their life or the one to determine their professional or academic destiny.  However, there is no need to panic since the subject to write about in the essay is always known very well to the students since in most cases, a student will be required to write about themselves. Hence as an interesting person this is the opportunity to prove to the officers in charge of college admissions how unique and interesting you are.  After all, that is what the college admission officers are looking for. This is because they are interested in knowing something about you as a student that is not indicated in your resume, academic awards, grade-point average, SAT score, or any other testimonials included in the application package. In order to ensure they pick the best candidates for admission they want a well-organized, focused essay that is essential in helping them in getting to know more about you as their potential student, your character and personality, what excites you and what drives you. However, in your master’s admission essays or PhD admission essays you only have a limited amount of words to prove to the college admission officers that you are the right person for the opportunity. To do all this you will be required to use a few words that are stringently limited, which is good and bad. They are good due to the fact that you need to write only a few words within a range of hundreds, and bad because you have to ensure to make your point in just those few words. Therefore, in order to be successful in writing this important college admission essay is important to view it as an opportunity instead of a chore. This is mainly because it is not a hard task, especially after you succinctly know and understand what is expected of you to write effective university admission essays. Hence in order to make good impression, there is the need to make sure that your essay stands out from many others thereby eliciting an emotional response from the reader of your college admission essay. In order to ensure that your university admission essays here are some crucial tips that will be helpful as you prepare an admission essay that is memorable essay and which will undoubtedly give you an opportunity to study at the institution of your dream. Create an interesting introduction In order to ensure that your admission essay attracts the attention of admission committee ensure that you begin with a surprising introduction that glues the reader’s eyes into your essay making them to be interested to read past the first paragraph. Make the introduction paragraph strikingly interesting and thrilling to win the reader’s interest to continue reading your essay, and who knows this may be your gateway to that admission. Be original College admission committees are bombarded with too many essays during every intake that just rotate around the theme. Hence in order for your admission essay to stand out among the crowd of others you should ensure you don’t fall in the same trap and try to do be unique. Instead of being a victim of this trend, you should make sure to focus on how to effectively overcome the situation and secure a chance to study in your desired college or university. As you write keep in mind that recycled materials are mostly boring, hence you should strive not to bore the admission committee. Thus, as you write and revise your admission or application essay, continually ask reflect on whether the admission committee will be interested in reading your essay.

Write as you speak The main purpose of an admission or application essay is to show the committee in charge of admissions the real you, what motivates you, and why you think or act the way you actually do. Therefore, you should not write your college admission essay as if you are someone else hence you should write what you really feel. Ensure that you are authentic, not superficial, and the style used should be a relaxed and conversational. Show genuine enthusiasm Making sure that your writing is invigorating will definitely draw the attention of the admission committee more than anything else. Hence when choosing your essay topic, ensure that you select a topic which genuinely excites you and your enthusiasm will undoubtedly show through. Focus Instead of describing all the things that you have done in your life, the trick is to give a full description of either a single or two events or items. The magic to a winning essay is in the details. Use simple words and short sentences According to several studies conducted by language experts, it is evident that persons who use complicated language are often perceived to be less intelligent compared to those who use more concise and simpler language. Hence since you want the admission committee to understand your essay at first instance, there is no need to needlessly use obscure terms because they will not be impressive. There is also the need to use active verbs since they make your essay livelier than when passive verbs are used. How to Write a Winning Scholarship Essay As economic crisis and financial constraints continue to rock most of the organisations that offer scholarship opportunities, the number of scholarships has continued to decrease making the available ones very competitive. Hence after carrying out an extensive research through scholarship books and the Internet, contacting scholarship advisors and identifying a list of awards that are perfect and interesting for you, the daunting task begins which is to win the money. In order to win the awards, you will be required to fill out applications and probably write a scholarship essay. In this kind of a situation the magic bullet is just to write an outstanding essay which will stand out among other scholarship application essays. As it is the case with college admission or application essays, the scholarship essays are also capable of either making or breaking your chances to win the scholarship award. Writing scholarship application essays is a daunting task to individuals seeking for opportunities to win a scholarship award. If you are currently facing this task or you envisage applying for a scholarship in the future, then no more struggle for you because this guide outlines the essential steps that you will need to adhere to when writing your scholarship essay in order to make sure that it gives you the best chance of winning.  Therefore, to write a scholarship winning essay you will need follow the following tips that have proved very essential over time. Make sure your essay fits the theme Always make sure that your scholarship application essay abides to the scholarship theme. For instance, if the scholarship award you are applying for is on community service, then it is very essential to ensure that in your scholarship essay, you list all groups of the community service that you are a member as well as the service project awards that you have so far won. This is mainly because despite your essay being brilliantly conceived and written, if its message does not align to the theme of the scholarship awards, then chances of winning the scholarship will be minimal because the conflicting message presented will do no good other than keeping you out of the winners’ bracket. However, how do you know the scholarship essay theme? This is very simple because you need to reflect on why you decided to apply for the award. The theme of a scholarship application essay is mostly determined by the award’s purpose or the reason for the organization to give away the money. Once this is known to you, then you are able to choose your aspects of life to be highlighted in the essay. Answer the underlying question Answering the essay’s underlying question effectively is the key to winning many scholarship awards. For instance, has someone ever asked you one question but you felt it like there was another underlying question that was being asked? In most cases, the scholarship application essay question acts as a springboard to give a chance for answering the real question which the scholarship committee would want addressed. For example, an organization giving scholarship awards to business students might ask, “What motivates you to be interested to study business?” in reality the underlying question will be for you to convince them why do you want to study business, and prove to them why you think you will be the best business person in the future in order to be gifted with their hard-earned money. Succinct answering of the essay question is essential because for every scholarship that you will apply for, there will be other many students you will be competing with whom you share similar goals and backgrounds and whom scholarship application essays might be more outstanding than your thereby minimising your chances to win the scholarship award. Therefore, the goal of the scholarship judges will be to determine the best applicant whose scholarship application essay stands out from a pool of many others. This will only be achievable by using the essay question to prove to the scholarship judges that you are the best applicant from a pool of other applicants for the scholarship award. Share a slice of life. In an explanation to the scholarship committee why you deserve to win the scholarship award, it is important to also reveal something little about yourself. Since scholarship essays have stringent control of words it not possible to cover everything about yourself, this is why it is important to just share a “slice of your life”, that is, don’t try to explain everything in the essay. Just ensure that you explicitly focus on one or two aspects of your life. This will enable you to share something about yourself, which would undoubtedly be far more memorable to the scholarship committee judges.   References Asher, D. (2008). Graduate admission essays: Write your way into the Graduate school of your choice (3rd ed.). San Francisco, CA: Ten Speed Press. Hahn, K.L. and Loew, C.M. (2009). A complete guide to writing effective college applications and essays for admission and scholarships: Step-by step instructions with companion CD-ROM, Volume 1. Hoboken, NJ: Atlantic Publication Group. McKinney, A. (2000). Real essays for college and Grad school: Actual essays to increase your chances for admissions and scholarships. Fayetteville, NC: PREP Publishing. Romaniuk, B.R. (2008). Scholarships, fellowships and loans: A guide to education-related financial aid programs for students and professionals. New York, NY: Gale Cengage Learning. Tanable, G. and Tanable, K. (2012). How to write a winning scholarship essay: 30 essay that won over $30 million in scholarships. Belmont, MA: SuperCollege.