subject: Be A Scholarship Winner! [print this page] Scholarship winners; you see their names in the paper, hear about them in school, and read about them on scholarship websites. With so many students applying for scholarships, how do the judges pick the winners? What does it take to get YOUR application selected from possibly thousands of applicants? What is IT that gets them chosen?
The bottom line is, someone has to win. Some student out there had what the rest of the students who applied didn't. They had IT. How do you find out what IT is or get IT yourself? Is there a magic formula that you can use to make the scholarship judges pick YOUR application from the sea of others on their desks? I believe that there is! Without sounding like a magician who knows all the tricks, I think that there is a way for students to get IT without having been class president, a star athlete, valedictorian, or have a perfect G.P.A.
What students need to realize is that when scholarship judges are reading through stacks of scholarship applications, they remember the ones that had something different about them. The ones that catch their eyes have IT. For example, in the popular scholarship essay subject of "How will this scholarship money help you?" the judge will remember the student who started off their essay with, "I am fascinated by blood! Most people get the willies and maybe even want to pass-out when they see the red stuff gushing from a two inch gash in an over-active toddler's little head, but NOT ME." Then the student goes on to explain, in great detail, about how the scholarship money will bring them one step closer to achieving their dream of becoming an emergency room physician or maybe a pediatrician. The student that starts their essay with, "This scholarship money will help my parents and me to pay for college..." will probably not excite the scholarship judge and create in them a desire to get to know the student better. Which essay are you thinking about right now? Poor little bleeding toddler.....
The scholarship essay is just one of several aspects of the scholarship application. Having an amazing essay alone might not make the judges pick you, but it is a huge part of having IT and becoming more than a name on a piece of paper. Find out more about the IT factor in my scholarship guide, How To Win College Scholarships. YOU need IT to win college scholarships!
