How to write a winning scholarship essay - Gen Tanabe, Kelly Tanabe 2018
Seeking genuineness
30 winning scholarship essays
Coca-Cola Scholars Foundation
You may think that with the right mix of perseverance and success you can create a winning essay. The truth is that there is no single winning formula for creating a masterpiece. As you’ll see in comments from the Coca-Cola Scholars Foundation, the best thing that you can do in your essay is be yourself.
—Gen and Kelly
Beyond the essay topic provided, students participating at the Semifinalist level are given no instruction as to how to write their essays for the Coca-Cola Scholars Foundation’s four-year Scholars Program.
“We don’t provide instruction because we see the essay as an opportunity for each student to sincerely express themselves,”
says Trisha Bazemore, program assistant.
The 27 members of the Program Review Committee, comprised of college admission officers and high school guidance counselors, are chosen for their expertise in evaluating students’ writing.
So what is the committee seeking as it reviews the 2,000 Semifinalist applications? In a word, genuineness.
“You can tell when you read an essay if it’s ’real,’ expressing an individual’s heartfelt experience, or if it’s an essay derived more from an awareness of presentation,” says Bazemore. She says that it’s important that students not try to write what they think the review committee wants to read.
“Be yourself,” she says.
emily Heikamp, angier b. duke memorial
scholarship winner
When exploring colleges in high school, it took Emily and her mother 14 hours to drive from Metairie, Louisiana, to the North Carolina campus of Duke University. But it was time well spent. After her visit, Emily fell in love with the college. She later wrote this essay to gain admission to and earn a full-tuition scholarship from Duke. In all, the self-described “science nerd” earned over $250,000 in scholarships including full-tuition awards from Texas A&M and Tulane University, which she de-clined to attend her dream school. A graduate of Archbishop Chapelle High School, she is majoring in biology and mathematics and plans to earn an M.D.Ph.D. in immunology or oncology.
Science Nerd
AGTCCGGAATT is the genetic code for Tumor Necrosis Factor (TNF), a human cytokine that may have deleterious, even fatal effects if produced in excess or inadequate quantities. For the past two years, I have performed research to study the effects of alcohol and glucocorticoids on the TNF response in murine macrophage cells. One may ask why I am interested in such an obscure topic. Well, I am a science nerd.
Scientific research fascinates me, as experiments raise many questions and always provide new challenges. Research also supplies knowledge of the most intimate interactions of the human body, giving a glimpse of processes that are invisible to the naked eye. My research provides me with this knowledge and the ability to share it with others, and it has given my life direction and purpose.
I discovered my passion for research when I was 15 years old. The summer after my sophomore year, I decided to trade in cherished lazy afternoons with tennis buddies, waking up at 1 p.m. and two months of dormancy for my tired brain. I became an employee of the physiology department at Louisiana State University Medical Center. My buddies became lab technicians, I woke up at 7 a.m. instead of sleeping in and my tired brain was forced into overdrive as I learned about Tumor Necrosis Factor and Lipopolysac-charides. And I loved my job.
I worked for Dr. Gregory Bagby, a professor and researcher of the Alcohol Research Center at LSUMC. His lab studies the effects of Simian Immuno-deficiency Virus and Ethanol on Rhesus Macaques. In other words, how SIV-infected drunken monkeys can get really sick. Nonetheless, his research fascinated me, and I had so many questions. Perhaps what fascinated me even more was Dr. Bagby spent time explaining his world of Lipopolysac-charides (LPS) and Tumor Necrosis Factor (TNF) to me, a lowly high school sophomore! I began to perform experiments and assays for his lab, while also doing secretarial work for his research grants. Eventually, I began my own research on alcohol and stress hormones. My research taught me so much and gave my life new direction. I finally knew what career I would pursue. But more importantly, I learned what kind of researcher I want to be. Dr. Bagby had shown me that being a great scientist is more than No-bels, prestige, and grant money. It is about sharing what you have learned with others, even lowly high school sophomores!
Being able to work with others who share my passion and enthusiasm has helped me to shape my dream. I plan to earn an M.D.Ph.D., specializing in immunology. As a physician scientist, I will see patients while also performing research to find new medications or a cure for their illnesses. I feel blessed to be a healthy young woman, and so I want to serve those who are not as fortunate by doing what I love most—research.
nancy pan, national merit scholar
Nancy is from Covina, California, and was attending South Hills High School when she wrote this essay for the National Merit Scholarship. She has won more than $10,000 in academic scholarships and is currently attending Stanford University. Her advice to students writing personal scholarship essays is to “dig deep within yourself to find something that uniquely represents you. From there show how your actions or achievements illustrate that particular aspect of you. The key is to have both the internal passion and the evidence that supports it.”
Superpan
My name is Nancy Pan. Growing up, my parents would always tease me, “You’re not Superpan, you know.”
But in my mind I was. Not only did I boast a red cape tied across my shoulders, I was also always pushing my limits. At age four, I would secretly practice on the courts for hours with ambitions of beating my six-foot tall dad in basketball. In third grade, I dedicated my entire summer at the library to writing my first 62-page novel, complete with hand illustrations.
By the time I entered middle school, I had managed to skip a total of four years in mathematics while remaining #1 in a class with high school juniors.
I am obviously not a superhero, but my life has been characterized by the dual roles which typify one—doing what others expect of me and doing what I expect of myself. It is with my choice to establish a profound difference between the two that I have optimized my high school experience.
These last three years, my academic life has been fueled by my passions for writing and mathematics. In writing, I am fascinated by its polar nature. At school, I’ve enrolled in Advanced Placement writing courses to understand the objective aspect of writing, dissecting written works based on both the content and presentation of the author’s message. I achieved a perfect score on my SAT Verbal and AP Literature exams, but I did not stop at being a good student. Rather, as an individual, I wanted to express myself in a way that was uniquely my own and yet still capable of moving others. I saw the development of my analytical abilities as a means of advancing my true passion, creative writing. Although such writing is more liberated and subjective, it too is built on a similar ability to dissect, analyze and understand plot and theme construction. I exploited what I learned in class, and in my own time, wrote volumes of poetry and short stories. In doing so, I won several city-wide writing contests, a poetry competition with Barnes & Nobles, a local publication and the luxury of putting my soul to words.
Perhaps in a way completely antonymous to my attraction for creative writing, I am fascinated by the objective purity of mathematics. However to me, math is not solely an abstract science but also a way to practically understand the world with numbers. Prior to high school, I extended my knowledge of mathematics outside of class, so that by the time I was a freshman, I had completed the AP Calculus curriculum. My school did not offer an official AP Calculus BC class, so I independently prepared for the exam and received a 5. Outside of class, I am enrolled in community college math courses, active in the Science Bowl with a focus on Mathematics and am additionally, the school representative for the Mathematics Olympiad. Although there are limitations in the math coursework provided by my school, my knowledge and passion for the subject has continued to thrive through my search for and involvement in outside opportunities.
Writing and mathematics are only two examples of areas in which I have recognized my potential to achieve and acted accordingly. However, I am an individual with many working passions. You will find in my application that I am additionally the Captain and All-League Finalist of my Varsity Tennis Team, a Valedictorian candidate, a winner of various scholarships, an active executive/officer in several extracurricular clubs, an avid volunteer, an employed instructor at a learning center and many other positions, each listed neatly but constrainedly upon the allotted line. I am all of these things, but they themselves are simply manifestations of my desire to reach my peak as an individual.
Over the years, my parents adapted their mocking tone and started calling me Superpan with affection. As for me, it’s been years since I’ve put on that red cape again, but my mentality has not waived. I will continue to push my limits only to someday realize that there are none.