How to write a winning scholarship essay - Gen Tanabe, Kelly Tanabe 2018

Be true
12 essays that bombed

Elisa Juárez & Emanuel Pleitez

Being truthful in the essay is not just the right thing to do but it also makes for a much better essay. Many essay disasters are created when students decide to write about something they don’t know much or care about.—Gen & Kelly Elisa Tatiana Juárez

Brown University student and scholarship winner “Be honest. I have a lot of friends who said you could lie. You could but in the end people will really know who you are.”

Emanuel Pleitez

Stanford University student and scholarship winner “Be true. Don’t try to fake anyone out. It’s not going to work.

You don’t have to be the greatest writer. I write what I really feel. If you really believe in what you’re writing, then you should be well off.”

The Highway Patrol is akin to my parents because whenever I feel like breaking the rules, as any driver would, the presence of my parents always prevents me from doing so.

Throughout my young life I have been on a highway full of cars passing interesting exits. As I pass each exit--the doctor exit, the lawyer exit, the CEO exit--I realize that my highway of life is full of so many possibilities.

However, none of these intriguing possibilities can be reached without the integral element of the automobile: gas. In my mind, my education is the gas that will run my car that will take me to these places.

why this essay bombed

The student might think that this concept of comparing life to a highway is quite inspired. In fact, she might have even talked about it with her friends and they might have been impressed. However, somewhere along the line she must have missed adult contact. This essay really just makes the applicant appear silly. She starts with an original idea but takes it too far in an overly simplified way. Being creative is good.

But don’t go overboard and end up with a laughable essay.

How to avoid this mistake

Have several other people read your essay. If you feel that maybe it is too creative or may border on being trite, ask what they think.

Sometimes we just get too caught up in our own writing to make good judgments.