Student Loans, Private Student Loans, Financial Aid, Paying for College, Education Loans, Undergraduate Borrowing, Graduate Borrowing
Getting you the grade since 1999.

Scholarship and Award Essays

  1. Preparing for College
  2. Finding the Right College
  3. Applying to College
  4. The Application Essay
  5. The Interview
  6. Selecting a School
  7. Paying for School
  8. Scholarship and Award Essays

Scholarship and Award Essays

Introduction

Scholarship and award essays have a lot in common with admission essays, but the standards for winning essays are much higher. Hundreds or thousands of applicants might be trying to win each spot. The grammar, spelling, sentence structure, organization, and content of your essay all must be impeccable.

It is essential to persuade readers that you have the winning essay. Readers can spot losing essays a mile away: they contain errors or fail to follow directions, the title is boring, the first sentence or two are uninspiring, the thesis is common and boilerplate. Winning essays win with a combination of a solid, engaging, thoughtful, well expressed argument or topic; a meaningful title; an introduction that makes you stand out as a winning personality; a strong exposition that fits the institution's values; and perfect copy editing.

How can you improve your material so that it is ready to be edited to excellence? This brief guide helps you get it right before you go down the wrong path. For further assistance developing your essay, consider GradeSaver's Deluxe Harvard Editing Service for scholarship and award essays.

Follow All the Rules

Before you start working on your essay, make sure you know all the rules. Do not test the patience of your readers by breaking even a minor rule. When it is possible to do so, get the latest set of rules from the organization's web site - they might have changed since the last time you checked - and look up the rules again before you submit your essay.

Basic rules to watch out for include the due date (sometimes the deadline is extended), the length (maximum or minimum words or pages), margins and fonts (use standard ones if there are no explicit rules), and the title (sometimes a certain title is required).

Most importantly, make sure you very clearly understand what you are supposed to write about. If the prompt reads, "Account for your opinions about the role of the United States in global warming," that is exactly what you are supposed to do. It would be wrong to frame your essay around global warming. It also would be wrong to frame your essay around the U.S. contribution to global warming, or even the U.S. role in general (in some ways contributing to it, in other ways reversing the effects). It even would be wrong to frame your essay around your opinions about the role of the U.S. in global warming. Indeed, the prompt asks you to do none of those things. You are supposed to account for your opinions on that topic. The real topic of your essay might be, for example, a book you read, a television show you watched, or a news report that led to your opinions about the U.S. role in global warming.

Likewise, if you are required to include certain themes or sources in your essay, do not fail to include them.

Meeting the Deadline

Usually there is no real difference between submitting your essay weeks in advance and sending it by express mail on the last day. An office assistant will put your essay in the pile for your readers, all the same. The advantage of submitting your application early is that if there is a problem, you might be contacted early enough to be able to correct it. The advantage of taking extra time is that you might need it to improve your essay.

If it looks like you are going to miss the deadline, it's worth a shot finding out if you can submit part of your application by the deadline and then the essay a day or two later. These exceptions are made for letters of recommendation all the time, because the applicant should not have to suffer from someone else's mistake. You never know if the office assistant is going to be in a good mood and might generously let you sneak by, even when the mistake is your own. Make direct contact with the organization if you can, and see what you can do.

Do You Know What the Institution Values?

To stay with the example above, note that it might be ok to challenge the premise in the question: you might argue that global temperatures cannot be affected much at all by human action. Your startling thesis might be, "Since I have come to believe that global temperature change is an entirely natural process and almost nothing can be done about it, I am convinced that the United States has no significant role in global warming." But would this essay topic be advisable? It all depends on which organization asked you to write the essay. What does the institution value, and what beliefs do its members hold? Would the institution be proud to put your essay on its web site?

It is essential to learn what the institution values and then to demonstrate in your essay that you support those values. An essay about you should show that you either exemplify those values already or aspire to achieve them through some aspect of your life and work. An essay about the values themselves can interrogate those values a little, but ultimately must come out in favor of the institution's central values (if not also the secondary values).

If you do not genuinely share those values or at least tolerate them, consider carefully whether you really want to enter the contest. If you are a committed capitalist and win an award from a strongly communist organization (or vice versa) and put the award on your resume, what will this award suggest to potential employers? Maybe the $500 prize will come back to haunt you and you will lose a $50,000 job offer.

Note that in many scholarship and award contests, the organization is a billion-dollar foundation with very general central values. It is hard to go against the value of "education" or "science" broadly speaking, and the organization will not expect you to address those kinds of values in a general way. Instead, the organization often values and honors the same kinds of values that you would demonstrate in an admission essay: academic excellence and strong academic character; potential for success; strong social skills; strong communication skills; or personal virtues. These values and virtues are explained in detail under Admission Essays. Indeed, some of these characteristics might be explicitly mentioned as criteria for the award. Read the scholarship or award announcement carefully to see if certain personal criteria are given explicitly or implicitly.

Remember that even when you are writing about a topic other than yourself, your essay instructs the reader about you, both directly and indirectly: this is what I find interesting or valuable; this is how I solve problems and withstand challenges; this is why the institution should establish a relationship with me by supporting me. Most programs already expect that the essays of the top candidates will be written very well. What they are looking for is the winning essayist as well as the winning essay.

How to Be the Cream of the Crop

A lot of finalists will have perfectly edited essays with interesting titles and solid arguments, backed up by implications and other evidence that the candidates are smart, thoughtful, hardworking, and engaged. What will make your essay rise above the rest?

  1. Do more research than the competition. On the practical side, note that some contests list the names of the judges. Look them up, learn what the judges value, and write with those particular readers in mind. Keep in mind that only one judge might read your essay carefully before you become a finalist. On the research side, give yourself extra time to research the topic. When the topic involves something like global warming, you can get specific data to back up your arguments. When the topic involves yourself, make sure that you get the circumstantial details correct: is that castle at Lake Bled really 900 years old, and is it really on the eastern hill? If you are writing about a personal experience, engage in some honest introspection to truly understand and account for your thoughts and feelings.
  2. Write more drafts than the competition. Give yourself time to look at your topic from additional perspectives. Try out the same basic essay from different points of view. Maybe you should tell a vacation story through the eyes of your younger brother or your mother, or from the perspective of all of you together, or you might explain the same experience from each person's perspective to note the differences, or you could narrate it in the third person as though from a distance. Keeping in mind the values of the institution, maybe you should write the global warming essay from the perspective of a fish, a U.S. Government official, a Louisiana citizen, or an environmentalist, or you could put some or all those perspectives in conversation, or you could write a clear and precise scientific account. You won't have a good idea of how it reads until you give it a try.
    #Similarly, try different arrangements of phrases in a sentence, sentences in a paragraph, and paragraphs in the essay. As your experience develops and your style improves, you will gain a more intuitive sense of what structure will work best, so you will not have to go through all the permutations every time.
  3. Get more help than the competition. It is not unusual for professional academics to spend a couple of years gathering information, writing drafts, and publishing a finished essay. During that time, a dozen people may have contributed directly or indirectly to the finished product: some of them have contributed ideas and provided research direction, while others have read multiple drafts, and still others have edited the "final" manuscript. (Check out the "acknowledgments" section of a book for a long list of names including family members, assistants, typists, and professional editors.) This process is completely acceptable, even though only one author's name might go on the finished project. This is because the author chose the thesis, maintained "creative control" over the project, and cited substantial contributions where necessary. You can do the same, limited by your time and other resources. Different people or services can contribute different skills. Let GradeSaver help you every step of the way.
  4. Be remembered. You are more likely to be remembered favorably when something good stands out in your essay. As for admission essays, this can mean writing about something (1) specific, (2) unusual or startling, and (3) personally meaningful. See "How to Be Remembered" under Admission Essays for specific advice. Furthermore, an essay showing that you have mastered your subject will be remembered for sheer intellectual achievement.

Would You Survive an Interview?

Some competitions involve not just an essay or two but a resume, an additional writing sample, and even an interview for finalists. Think ahead of time about a potential interview. Will you be able to defend and corroborate the information in your essay? Will you have something worthwhile to say if someone asks you further about the experience or about the research you did? If someone presents an argument that goes against your position, will you be able to respond? Can you restate your argument from memory? Could you speak about it intelligently for two or three minutes if necessary?
Even if you are not going to have a formal interview, you will benefit from considering these questions. Imagine somebody interrogating you about your topic, presenting counter-evidence and counter-arguments. Make your essay solid enough to withstand the pressure, and show that you have considered alternative positions.

Writing the Essay: The Title

In scholarship essays, the title often makes a great deal of difference. A smart, catchy, relevant title marks the essay as worth reading and the essayist worth noting.

  1. Usually it is not enough to name the subject of the essay in the title. It is especially important to go beyond the general theme in competitions where all contenders are responding to the same prompt. Give, in addition, a sense of the argument of the essay.
  2. Write as specific a title as you can without going on too long or emphasizing only part of the argument. Remember that whatever you promise in the title must actually come through in the essay.
  3. Consider using some of the words (or synonyms for the words) of the prompt, but do not simply restate the whole prompt, unless you are specifically instructed to use the prompt as the title of the essay. Even so, if you are submitting several essays in response to different prompts, make sure that the titles clearly suggest which essay goes with which prompt.
  4. Presenting a promise often engages the reader. Titles that begin with "How" or "Why" promise that you will explain something worth understanding. Similarly, presenting a question in the title is basically a promise that you will provide some sort of answer in the essay.
  5. A common practice in writing titles is to give two versions of the title separated by a colon. See the first example below.

Example 1: Lake Bled. Not: "A Great Day in Summer," not: "A Summer Day Worth Remembering," not: "Lake Bled in Summer," not: "My Favorite Day in Bled." The fact that it was a summer day is not part of the argument. Instead, consider: "True Peace and Quiet: The Undiscovered Treasures of Lake Bled."

Example 2: Global Warming. Not: "Global Warming," not: "My Opinions about Global Warming," not: "How U.S. Policy Contributes to Global Warming," not: "Accounting for My Opinion That U.S. Policy Causes at Least 40% More Global Warming than the Policies of Other Countries." Instead, consider: "Does U.S. Policy Contribute More to Global Warming than Any Polluter? An Environmentalist's View."

The First Sentence

The first sentence of an award-winning essay must look the part. In other words, aim for an award-winning sentence. It can be short, medium, or long, but it must orient the reader in terms of tone, content, and language. Use it to start preparing your readers for the "trip" that you have designed for their benefit (see "Take Your Reader on a Trip" under What Makes a Good Essay?).

Tone. Choose a tone that is appropriate to the rest of the essay. Is this an investigative or instructive essay, or one where you examine different points of view? If so, consider starting with a question. In contrast, if you aim to move the reader through an emotionally powerful essay, consider giving a sense of emotion from the beginning. Or if the point is to delight the reader with an engaging story, use narrative or dialogue from the first sentence. Or if you are entering a battle zone, decide whether you are a combatant or a neutral reporter, and show your perspective in the first sentence.
Content. Just as in the title, the content of the first sentence should be preparing the reader to learn your perspective on your topic. This means, again, choosing a level of specificity that is not too broad. A broad first sentence that suggests a Funnel structure (see Take Your Reader on a Trip) automatically is at a disadvantage. Note, however, that an extremely specific first sentence (even a very carefully chosen statistic), while all but impossible in a title, can be an effective opening. Get right to the issue.

Again, to use a familiar example, consider these alternatives. Not: "Global warming is fast becoming a problem that every nation will have to reckon with." That's too general. Instead, consider: "Not only has the United States failed to ratify the Kyoto Protocol and reduce the U.S. contribution to global warming, but existing U.S. standards for greenhouse gas emissions also have failed to encourage polluters to decrease levels of emissions." This line could set up a thesis statement such as "No organization has done more to publicize the U.S. role in global warming than [an organization whose principles and goals match those of your readers], which has spent ... million dollars to convince me and millions of others that the United States should strengthen its emissions policies."

Language. In the example above, note that the tone is somewhat combative (the essayist takes a side) and that the content is clearly signaled. But the combative language is still respectful: although the U.S. and its emission standards are said to have "failed," the writer does not challenge anyone's motives--perhaps there are good reasons why the failures have occurred--and does not name any specific "polluters." (Furthermore, when you get to the thesis suggested above, invoking the efforts of a well-endowed organization not only shows that the problem has been considered significant but also puts your words in the company of a group larger than merely yourself.) In addition, the vocabulary fits the subject: in an essay that concerns global warming, readers with a good education might expect references to "greenhouse gas emissions" and the Kyoto Protocol. These terms hardly need to be defined for the target audience of readers; the terms help show that you are familiar with the subject. Finally, note that no extreme language is used: the U.S. and polluters are not portrayed as "the problem" but just as contributors to the overall, complex situation.

In any case, the first sentence of a great scholarship essay often is much like the first sentence of a great admission essay or academic essay. See "The First Sentence" in Admission Essays and Academic Essays for further important advice.

Remember that early drafts of your first sentence should be just enough to get you started as you write and revise. Later, when you have a solid command of your argument and a perfect feel for the tone of your essay--this may not be until after you have written several drafts--you can spend time focusing on the first sentence. Don't get bogged down before the rest of the essay is in place.

The First Paragraph

In a great opening paragraph, every sentence does significant work. Each sentence requires significant attention to tone, content, and language. The two anchors are your opening sentence and your thesis sentence, but these do not lie apart from one another or from the rest of the sentences. Like an interlocking framework, all the sentences work together; even a small shift in one sentence could affect all the others.

For example, let's stay with the paragraph on global warming.

"Not only has the United States failed to ratify the Kyoto Protocol and reduce the U.S. contribution to global warming, but existing U.S. standards for greenhouse gas emissions also have failed to encourage polluters to decrease levels of emissions. Emissions from factories, cars, and ? [research a third item] have been increasing dramatically every year in the United States [check facts and cite], while most other industrialized nations have been able to hold emissions fairly steady in at least one of these areas in the years since the Kyoto Protocol [check facts and cite]. These other nations--x, y, and z in particular--have succeeded primarily by enforcing strict emissions standards and by simultaneously demonstrating a commitment to improving the environment. The United States, in contrast, has pursued some policies that have encouraged additional air pollution, such as XXX. No organization has done more to publicize the U.S. role in global warming than ..., which has spent ... million dollars to convince me and millions of others that the United States should strengthen its emissions policies."

Again, note that the writer leaves some material for future research. Much of the content work can be performed later and added to the next draft. Just remember that when your research suggests an alteration in the argument, the argument should be changed accordingly.

The Body

The body of an outstanding scholarship or award essay has the same features as outstanding essays in general. Again, see Admission Essays and Academic Essays for significant advice. Remember that each body paragraph should be a discrete unit with a clear point, taking the next reasonable step as you proceed through a consistent line of argument.
Dealing thoughtfully and intelligently with counter-claims and counter-evidence is often essential to award-winning essays. Readers want to know that you have considered your position carefully. This includes demonstrating that although you have considered other positions, you remain persuaded that your position is the strongest. The following advice also is essential for essays in which you do not take a position but present a variety of possible claims in order to demonstrate your knowledge or interest in a particular issue.

When you treat any claim that is not your own, especially a counter-claim, present it fairly and, as much as possible, on its own terms. Give each position everything (but no more than) it deserves. You even should "help out" that position by making it as strong as it should be - if possible, stronger than even its defenders have argued. When you give an opposing position every benefit of the doubt, you show a great deal of thoughtfulness, honesty, and justice. Then, you will have the prerogative, and your readers will be likely to join with you as you proceed to show why, "nevertheless," that position is flawed and that your position or someone else's is stronger.

At the same time, pay attention to the relative amount of effort that the essay expends on your position versus the other positions. Usually the majority of the essay should focus on your own position, so do not get bogged down in refuting other positions at length. Likewise, do not worry about responding to every potential challenge to your position; it normally is quite enough to include your responses to the best and most significant challenges that could be offered.

In covering the ground of your own position, make sure that you are using a high standard of evidence. Remember that evidence is often a quotation from another source. Do not cite a second-rate source, including most encyclopedias, dictionaries, newspaper articles, popular magazines, and most of the material on the Internet. Even a strong Internet source is suspect among readers, simply because it shows that you did your research from the relative ease of your computer rather than at the library. Whenever you can, find a published source (usually a book or journal article) to cite in place of an Internet source.

It ought to go without saying that your evidence also should be (1) relevant, (2) interpreted thoughtfully and accurately, and (3) appropriate.

  1. Relevant evidence is that which pertains to the particular point being made in the paragraph if not also the entire argument of the essay. When you are searching for and choosing from among relevant pieces of evidence, look for phrases that are memorable and which use some of the key words that are used elsewhere in your point or in the overall argument.
  2. Accurate interpretation of evidence involves understanding the evidence in its larger context as well as in itself. Thoughtful interpretations also bring out the importance of the quotation in its new context, the particular location in your essay where the evidence is brought forth.
  3. Evidence is appropriate when it has the right length (not too long or too short given the amount of weight that it carries), the right tone (objective, combative, or whatever is necessary for you to illustrate or develop the point), the right source (a trustworthy rather than a suspect source), and the right form (in some places it makes sense to quote a speech or lines of a poem, but in other places only written prose will do).

Although the evidence in the body of your essay often will come from sources that you quote and statistics that you cite, some evidence may take other forms. Winning essays often rely on a wide variety of relevant and appropriate evidence. For example, sometimes the outcome of a minor line of argument becomes a piece of evidence, that is, one of the premises of your major line of argument. Sometimes your own observations are the most important evidence, such as in essays that describe your own experience or achievements (including many admission essays as well as reports on your own scientific experiments). And sometimes your evidence is so obvious or commonplace that it need not be cited, although it might be essential to your argument, such as the idea that Einstein revolutionized Newtonian physics with his theory of relativity.

The Last Paragraph

In a short admission essay, the last paragraph often should do a lot more than sum up the essay. In contrast, in a long academic essay the body paragraphs tend to lead the reader to a kind of plateau, followed by a "conclusion" with a markedly different feel: the reader knows the essay is ending. In long essays, the conclusion can consist of two or three paragraphs or even as much material as an entire admission essay. A successful scholarship essay, often having a length between that of a short admission essay and a long academic essay, exhibits the best of both kinds of conclusions.

In other words, a strong scholarship essay does not need to make the conclusion do the double duty of providing additional content and providing an ending statement at the same time, which is characteristic of a very short essay. Yet the conclusion of a scholarship essay should do more than simply sum up what has been presented so far. Likewise, a strong scholarship essay seldom needs a long concluding section. Most of the points to score have already been scored by the time the conclusion begins. Instead, consider the conclusion as your opportunity to move your readers from the plateau of your argument to the best place they should visit next. Remember the metaphor of taking your reader on a trip: from the plateau, you and your reader are best positioned to see the overall landscape and to make a decision about the next step.

The summary in the last paragraph should be clear (or in some particulars, implied), but some kind of intelligent, witty, perceptive, motivational, or otherwise interesting further remarks also should appear. What kind of further remarks you choose will depend on what seems most appropriate to your particular essay.

Finishing Touches

It is possible to write a winning essay without having read any writing guides and without getting any help from others. But this is inadvisable.

  1. At the very least, get the reactions of one student or peer reader and one reader above that level (a teacher, parent, boss, or professor). Best of all, try to find a reader who is most like the readers who will judge your essay. Try to engage them in conversation about the essay's strengths and weaknesses.
  2. At the very least, read your essay out loud to catch typos and, more importantly, to hear the tone and flow of the essay. Try to read it in the presence of a peer and/or a superior, and have that person read it back out loud to you. Remember that the reader of your essay will read as the essay looks on the page, not the way you imagine it sounding in your head. Even so, note that one of the judges might read individual lines or sentences out loud in order to persuade other judges that your essay deserves to win (or not to win). Make sure that your worst three or four sentences are still readable. Just as important, make sure that your best three or four sentences are memorable and of prize-winning quality.
  3. At the very least, put the essay aside for a minimum of 24 hours after it is "finished," don't even think about it, and then return to the essay with a renewed mind and a fresh eye. Give yourself 48 hours or more if you can. To make the most of that time, give others the essay so that they can suggest some editing improvements for you to consider. GradeSaver has extensive experience providing such advice; let GradeSaver give you specific directions for editing your essay to the level required to win.

The previous was taken from Preparing for College and was written by Adam Kissel, a senior editor.


Copyright (C) 2007 GradeSaver Loans LLC. All rights reserved.
The lender for Gradesaver Student Loans is RBS Citizens, N.A., Member FDIC and Equal Opportunity Lender. RBS Citizens, N.A. may sell your student loan to a third party. RBS Citizens, N.A. will only sell your student loan if the third party agrees to honor all of RBS Citizens, N.A.'s promises to you, including all promised benefits that you will receive or might become eligible for during the loan repayment period.