How to write a winning scholarship essay - Gen Tanabe, Kelly Tanabe 2018
Excuses, Excuses, Excuses
12 essays that bombed
Nobody is perfect. We all make mistakes. Maybe you skipped a few too many 8 a.m. classes in freshman year. Perhaps you didn’t put all of your effort into a science project. All of this is normal. However, what is not normal or useful is using the essay to explain past mistakes. The essay should be used to highlight your strengths, not call the judges’
attention to or make excuses for your shortcomings.
It’s not my fault
I received horrible grades all throughout high school, but hardly any of them were due to my own actions. Let me explain: you’ll notice that during freshman year I earned a 2.5 GPA. The reason for this is that I had just gone through a difficult move to a new city, the first time our family had relocated. It was hard for me to adjust to the new environment of living in a big city and I made few friends. Because of this, I had a very difficult time in all my classes, which, by the way, were chosen all by my overprotective mother.
Then, during sophomore year, I finally started to make some pretty good friends, but one day in the middle of October, my dog died. That devastated me. I took the SAT I that month and my results definitely reflect this loss. Throughout the year I couldn’t recover from such a loss, because I had my dog since I was 5 years old.
Then came junior year. Emotionally, this was my worst year. I went through a terrible breakup with my girlfriend of five months in the middle of winter break. Since then, school has been in the way of my recovery, and I have performed poorly as a result. I tried taking the SAT I again, and my emotional weakness once again reflects my scores. APs and SAT IIs were no different. I joined the basketball team in the beginning of the year, but I was almost immediately cut.
Senior year I tried to make a comeback, but my GPA remained the same.
This discouraged me because none of my friends believed I was intelligent.
I tried to join clubs in the hopes that community involvement would cure my woes, but in fact the impersonality of clubs altogether discouraged me further so I haven’t stayed in any.
Meanwhile, my family is running out of money. My dad has been laid off from his job for about six months now. I feel like the world is against me now, and I could really use this scholarship to help my college career, if I have one.
why this essay bombed
What this essay does is call attention to the writer’s deficiencies instead of his strengths. We all have things about ourselves that we are not proud of so why put faults on display when the object of the scholarship essay is to impress the judges? Compounding this effect is that the student tries to avoid taking responsibility for his shortcomings by blaming everything and everyone else. If you are going to admit to a mistake then at least take responsibility for your actions.
How to avoid this mistake
Showcase your strengths in the essay. If you do need to reveal a weakness or shortcoming, explain how you have grown from the experience.
We all make mistakes but what is important is that we learn from each of them. Whatever you do, don’t avoid responsibility for your actions.