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

Academic questions
Real interview questions & answers

Q: what is your favorite subject in school and why?

a: I enjoy studying English because I like writing. When I write, I feel like I can be myself or I can be a totally different person. I can step into the shoes of someone in the past or be someone who I’m not—like an explorer in the Sahara. Writing lets me see through another person’s eyes and forces me to experience what their life must be like. The most difficult thing I ever wrote was a short story that won an award from my school’s literary magazine. Because the story was about a woman, the hardest part of writing it was that as a male, I had to completely reevaluate how I viewed my world through the eyes of a woman. I can tell you that I have a whole new understanding of what life might be like for the opposite sex.

a: My favorite subject is civics. Most people don’t understand the way that our government works and why so many checks and balances have been put into place. It’s a system that doesn’t always produce the results that I’d like to see, but I am fascinated by our attempts to make a system that is as close to perfect as possible. I can see myself working in government in the future.

comments

Both of these answers clearly explain the applicants’ choices. It would be easy just to name a favorite subject and leave it at that. But the judges are trying to understand why you like what you like. When answering a question like this, give reasons or examples for your selection.

Don’t state the obvious. If you are asked why English is your favorite subject, give more than “Because I like it” or “Because I’m good at it.”

You can also use a question like this as an opportunity to talk about an achievement or award. If you say that your favorite subject is English, you can speak about a writing competition that you won or the reading marathon that you started. This is a good springboard question which you can expand to bring your impressive achievements into the conversation.

Q: why did you select your major?

a: I’m majoring in history. History is intriguing because there are so many ways to describe the same event. A good example is the Second World War. There are many different viewpoints depending on which country the writer is from, whether he was in the military or a civilian or at what level in the leadership chain he was. It’s the historian’s job to present the information in the most objective way possible while still understanding that there are a lot of subjective elements to history. To me it’s like unraveling a mystery, except that the mystery is real.