How to write a winning scholarship essay - Gen Tanabe, Kelly Tanabe 2018
Personal Questions
Real interview questions & answers
Q: what is your greatest strength and weakness?
a: One of my strengths is my ability to lead. For example, at my school we didn’t have a recycling program. The janitors wouldn’t pick up the paper for recycling because it wasn’t in their contracts. I met with our principal to discuss the problem, but he said the school didn’t have the budget to pay for a recycling program. So I started a program myself. I got donations to buy bins to put in each of the classrooms and went to each class to make a speech to get volunteers to collect the papers for recycling. Every month, I gathered the volunteers for a meeting to discuss any changes or problems.
One of my weaknesses is impatience. I get frustrated when I see a problem but nothing is happening to fix it. I like to see people working toward solutions. I got very frustrated when I first found out that there was no recycling program at my school and especially when the janitors said they wouldn’t pick up the recycling even though I thought it didn’t require that much extra work. But I guess it was this frustration that led me to do something about it.
a: My strength is in math. Ever since elementary school I have been talented in math. In school, when everyone else was struggling with algebra and geometry, I didn’t have any trouble. I just imagined the problems in my head, visualizing the pyramids, spheres and cones. My math teacher even asked me to grade homework assignments. And I’ve represented our school each year for the county math competition.
My weakness is creative writing. I think because of the way that my mind works, it can be difficult to write creative essays. This is one of the reasons that I took a creative writing class last summer, and it really helped. The instructor had us pretend to be another person in the class and write from the other person’s perspective. We also went outside and imagined being the grass, trees and sun. I never thought like that before and it’s really opened up my mind to some new possibilities. This is one area that I know I need to work to improve.
comments
It’s easy to say that your strength is that you work hard. But what will really prove this to the judges is an example. Use an example to illustrate your strength so that the judges can see what you mean. It’s not enough to say that your strength is leadership. How have you led?
What kind of results have come from your leadership? Why do you do it? Both of these strength answers are good in giving complete examples. But more importantly they also help to contrast and balance the weakness. In the second response where the applicant admits to not being a skilled creative writer, this not only reveals an honest flaw but also gives him an opportunity to show what action he has taken to improve. There is nothing wrong with acknowledging a weakness, but it is very impressive to see that you are also taking steps to transform that weakness into a strength.